A pause on asylum processing, revelations about ICE surveillance and an ice scrapers protest
The Trump administration is using a recent shooting as the reason to implement sweeping restrictions on immigration to the United States.
Greetings, everyone,
As you may have noticed, I didn’t send out a news roundup on Thanksgiving. I figured whether you were celebrating the holiday or not, we could all probably use a little break from the constant news updates. I hope you spent last Thursday doing something that brought you joy.
Because immigration news apparently doesn’t even slow down for a holiday weekend, this update is a bit longer than normal. Please consider this my invitation to you to take your time and go at your own pace. The cliché is quite true — this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Also, it’s been one year since I announced that I would be starting this newsletter. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I would love to know how you’re finding Beyond the Border now — is there anything I could do better? Anything I should definitely keep doing or try not to do as much?
And, if you have the means, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. Decreasing funding at news outlets means fewer opportunities for freelancers like me — even as this work becomes increasingly critical to holding the government accountable for its actions and to humanizing what’s happening at the border and beyond. Your support helps me continue to do this. Thank you.
And now for the news.
After an Afghan man who once served in an elite force operated by the CIA was arrested on suspicion of shooting two members of the National Guard in Washington, the Trump administration has rolled out several policy changes that will affect thousands of immigrants’ ability to stay in or come to the United States.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stopped processing all immigration applications of people from Afghanistan and 18 other countries. It also stopped processing all asylum applications.
The Trump administration also announced a review of refugee cases for people who arrived during the Biden administration. Though officials are now linking this policy change to the shooting, Reuters broke the story on this change two days before the shooting happened.
People who knew the man have said that he was struggling with mental health issues related to his service. He would’ve been thoroughly screened by the U.S. government, both as part of his work in Afghanistan and later during his asylum and special immigrant visa applications.
Organizations that work with refugees, and particularly with Afghan arrivals, are condemning the policy changes, saying that the man’s actions do not represent anyone but himself.
“The facts have not changed: Afghan allies are among the most heavily vetted people ever to come to the United States. What has changed is the politics,” said Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac. “The administration is using one man’s actions to validate restrictions that were already underway, while ignoring the reality that it dismantled the very homeland security programs designed to catch individuals in crisis.”
Updates about ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detained about 54,000 people and deported about 56,000 during the government shutdown, The Guardian reported.
The intense immigration enforcement led by Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino has moved to New Orleans, WDSU News reported.
Though Bovino has left Chicago, immigration arrests there continue to tear families apart, the Chicago Tribune reported.
ICE deported a woman from New York to Guatemala in error, separating her from her children, the New York Times reported.
Latino USA profiled a family unlawfully deported to Honduras after already experiencing family separation under the first Trump administration.
ICE arrested a Brazilian woman who is the ex of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s brother and mother of his child, WBUR reported.
CalMatters reported that ICE arrested a Turkish asylum seeker and husband of a U.S. citizen at an abruptly scheduled check-in appointment.
ICE arrested spouses of military members at their green card interviews in San Diego, NBC 7 reported. The outlet reported that officers also arrested a mother holding her 5-month-old baby at her green card appointment, and she was detained for five days before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved her green card.
The Hometown Holler podcast interviewed a U.S. citizen arrested by ICE in North Carolina.
ICE has arrested about 20 people who came to the U.S. as children and have protection from deportation under a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the Associated Press reported.
ICE deported a college student who was on her way to visit her family for Thanksgiving, the New York Times reported.
ICE detained a man who was born in a refugee camp after his parents fled the Holocaust and who spent 70 years in the U.S., the Orlando Sentinel reported.
ICE detained a father and separated him from his son at a check-in appointment in New York, and the family still hasn’t been able to locate the 6-year-old child, THE CITY reported.
The New Yorker investigated what has happened to people the U.S. deported to countries that they’ve never been to.
Family members are still searching for a man who disappeared after having a medical emergency in ICE custody in early October, and now a member of Congress is getting involved, sending a letter to ICE and Customs and Border Protection asking about his whereabouts.
A federal judge overturned a Trump administration rule restricting the ability of people in immigration custody to request bond through an immigration judge, the Associated Press reported.
L.A. Taco told the story of a grandfather who recently died in ICE custody in Adelanto Detention Facility.
A Chinese man from Queens, New York, died in ICE custody in Pennsylvania, and his family is questioning why his hands and feet were bound at the time of his death, Documented NY reported.
After ICE deported Bhutanese men who’d fled their home country as an ethnic minority, Bhutan deported them to Nepal, rendering them stateless, New York Magazine reported.
ICE’s intense and violent enforcement practices are causing some immigrant women to remain in abusive relationships out of fear of deportation, The Marshall Project reported.
Surveillance
An Associated Press investigation found that Border Patrol is monitoring U.S. drivers’ movements across the country — and pulling over those the agency deems suspicious.
Court records revealed that the FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, The Guardian reported.
WIRED reviewed recent contract documents related to ICE hiring private bounty hunters to track immigrants.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is creating a database of noncitizen employees, The Guardian reported.
Palantir is helping ICE track and deport undocumented people faster, the Washington Post reported.
Resistance
This Instagram video shows a long line of people buying and then immediately returning 17-cent ice scrapers as a protest of Home Depot’s lack of action against ICE arrests in its parking lots.
San Diegans are rallying around a detained taco shop owner, Fox 5 reported.
A legal team in San Francisco has created a process to support people detained by ICE at their court hearings — and to get them released as quickly as possible — The San Francisco Standard reported.
In San Diego, attorneys with University of California Los Angeles Center for Immigration Law and Policy filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of people detained at their ICE check-in appointments.
The Dallas City Council rejected an $25 million offer from ICE to deputize the city’s police as immigration enforcement officers through the 287g program, KERA News reported.
Other stories to watch
Ecuador has agreed to receive asylum seekers from the U.S., El Espectador reported.
Places Journal looked back at the sanctuary movement and how that has evolved into groups who do humanitarian work along the border today.
Border Patrol agents entered a humanitarian aid station in the Arizona desert without a warrant, The Intercept reported.
Mother Jones reported on the history of the term “remigration” currently being used by the Trump administration and how it ties in with racist beliefs including the Great Replacement Theory.
The Guardian dug into how the Department of Homeland Security has gutted the watchdog system that oversees civil rights complaints about the department — including about issues in immigration detention.
El Paso Times published a photo essay looking at the decrease in migrants using Mexican train tops to travel north.
Reuters reported that San Diego trauma doctors are seeing fewer patients from border wall falls or other injuries that were common when more migrants were visibly crossing the border.
The Department of Homeland Security is advertising temporary immigration judge positions on its X account. The Department of Justice is responsible for immigration judges, not DHS.
The Department of Justice fired another immigration judge in the middle of a hearing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
CNN published a deep dive into what’s happening at immigration courts across the country. (A little shout out to Celina Tebor, the lead byline on this, who once upon a time was an intern working with me at The San Diego Union-Tribune.)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials are conducting home visits, scaring people who are in the process to naturalize, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent died of a cocaine overdose a month after fighting with Long Beach police, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your questions and feedback.
Take care and stay well.