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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 1, 2026· Updated

Two Fatal ICE Shootings in Houston and Maine Trigger Senate Demands for Body Cameras and Vetting Answers

Two people were killed by federal immigration officers in July 2026, neither of whom was the target of the operation that killed them. On July 7, ICE officers shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national, during a traffic stop in Houston as he was on his way to work. On July 13, officers shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national, in his car near his home in Biddeford, Maine, after ICE attempted a vehicle stop; DHS said the officer fired "fearing for public safety," while Sen. Angus King's office said Durán Guerrero was not the target of the warrant. The Associated Press subsequently reported that the ICE officer who fired in Maine, David Brouillette, had a documented history of serious mental health problems and violent behavior toward family members recorded in family court files. On July 20, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) led a letter signed by 38 Democratic senators demanding that DHS explain its vetting and training of new agents and its vehicle pursuit policies, and calling for body cameras to be issued to all officers. ICE subsequently pulled back on vehicle stops. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since the start of the administration's crackdown.

“It's for our safety and the public safety, too.”
Markwayne Mullin (R) · Sep 1, 2026

Aug 30, 2026· Updated

ICE Arrests Parents at Danbury School Bus Stops in the First Week of School — Waiting Until the Kids Were on the Bus — and Connecticut’s Governor Says Trump Promised Governors He Would Not Do This

Over three days in late August 2026, as Danbury, Connecticut schools opened for the year, ICE agents detained close to 50 people in the city — 16 on Monday, at least nine on Tuesday and 25 on Wednesday, according to the advocacy group Danbury Unites for Immigrants. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said agents were arresting parents at school bus stops and had waited until children boarded the buses, so the children would return in the afternoon to find their parents gone. On August 26, Murphy joined Gov. Ned Lamont, Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT-05), Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves at Kennedy Park to condemn the operation. Lamont said Trump had personally told a gathering of governors earlier in the year that ICE would not be sent into cities that had not asked for help. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), traveling in Ukraine, issued a written statement. DHS rejected the mayor's allegation of racial profiling, said ICE "does not target schools," and said the operation had arrested people convicted of assault, weapons offenses, sexual assault, molestation of a minor and DUI. The Danbury operation is part of a documented rise in ICE arrests in states that did not request federal enforcement.

“Very few of them, only a fraction, maybe six or seven, have any kind of criminal history. In fact, they are seizing people. Many of them have legal status in this country.”
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) · Aug 30, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

The Justice Department Sues Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington Over In-State Tuition for Dreamers — Bringing Its Running Total to 21 States, and in Arizona Suing to Void a Law the Voters Passed Themselves

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, the Justice Department filed suit against Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington over state laws that let undocumented students who graduated from in-state high schools pay in-state tuition at public colleges. The four filings brought the administration's running total to 21 states sued over the same policy. The Arizona case is the most politically loaded of the four: the policy at issue, Proposition 308, was approved directly by Arizona voters in 2022. The Justice Department's complaint calls it "blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens" and argues it is preempted by federal law. Arizona's attorney general answers that Prop 308 does not turn on residency at all — it turns on where a student went to high school and graduated — and that the fight is fundamentally about states' rights. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting has estimated more than 3,600 noncitizens could qualify; at least 720 have received in-state tuition, including 432 at Arizona State University. The governors of Oregon and Washington both said they would defend their laws. Arizona's two Democratic senators issued a joint statement calling the suit an attack on people "deeply rooted in America." Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward framed the filings as enforcement of "Congress's clear prohibition on placing aliens over citizens."

“Dreamers are Americans in every way. They grew up here, went to our schools, and are contributing to communities across Arizona. Making college more expensive for young people who are deeply rooted in America does nothing to fix our broken immigration system or make our country safer.”
Mark Kelly (D-AZ) · Aug 28, 2026

A House Republican Proposes a Constitutional Amendment Barring Naturalized Citizens From Congress and the Federal Bench — Naming Three Democrats, and Disqualifying Four Republicans and a Republican Senator She Did Not Mention

On May 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) announced a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would require members of Congress, federal judges and Senate-confirmed appointees to be natural-born U.S. citizens — extending to the whole federal government a requirement the Constitution imposes only on the president. Naturalized citizens currently serving would be disqualified. Mace singled out three foreign-born Democrats in making her case: Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), born in Somalia; Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), born in India; and Shri Thanedar (D-MI), born in India. A May 1, 2026 Congressional Research Service report counted roughly 19 foreign-born members of the current Congress. Among them are four Republican House members the amendment would also disqualify — Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), born in Ukraine; Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), born in Cuba; Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), born in Mexico; and Young Kim (R-CA), born in South Korea — along with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), a Trump ally born in Colombia who became a citizen at 18. None of them responded to reporters' requests for comment. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus noted publicly that four sitting Republicans were not citizens at birth. Because it is a constitutional amendment, the measure would require two-thirds of both chambers and ratification by three-fourths of the states — a practical impossibility — but it has continued to shape the debate. On August 27, 2026, the Washington Post's Toluse Olorunnipa reported that the push had broadened: Republican lawmakers in several states have introduced measures to bar naturalized and dual citizens from running for state office, and at least five Republicans in Congress have called for barring them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships and congressional seats. The reporting tied the escalation to the rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized officials. Democratic reaction was immediate and uniform; no Republican member has publicly endorsed the amendment on the record.

“This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.”
Nancy Mace (R-SC) · Aug 27, 2026

ICE Signs a $16.7 Million No-Bid Contract for 6,000 Pairs of Gloves That Deliver Electric Shocks — Sixteen Senators Ask Why Its Existing Tools Are Not Enough, and the Border Czar Answers "You Can’t Just Go From 0 to 100"

On August 10, 2026 the Department of Homeland Security published a notice that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement intended to spend up to $20 million on the CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E. — for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — a patrol glove made by Compliant Technologies LLC of Kentucky that functions normally until an officer switches it into "electrical mode," at which point contact with exposed skin delivers a charge of up to 380 volts. ICE signed the contract on Wednesday, August 26 and posted the award on Thursday, August 27: $16.7 million, no bid, for 6,000 pairs at roughly $2,495 apiece. The agency wrote in its procurement documents that it "does not currently have an empty hand use of force device to provide to the field amidst unprecedented levels of threats and violence against ICE officers and agents." A DHS spokesperson said ICE is "constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field." The purchase went through over two rounds of congressional objection. On August 20, Homeland Security Committee Democrats Bennie Thompson, Lou Correa and Shri Thanedar wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin asking him to stop the procurement, citing what they called a pattern of DHS personnel permanently injuring and nearly killing people with weapons already labeled "less-lethal." On August 27 — the day the award posted — Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto led fifteen colleagues in a letter to Acting ICE Director David Venturella putting more than thirty questions to the agency about protocols, training, safety limits and accountability. The signers included Angus King, the letter's only non-Democrat. White House border czar Tom Homan had defended the device on Fox & Friends on August 13, framing it as a rung on the use-of-force ladder below lethal weapons. The device arrives against the record this site has already documented: fatal ICE shootings in Houston and Maine, an ICE agent charged with firing into a Minneapolis home, and a man in Arlington, Virginia tasered on his way to work who woke with a brain bleed.

“We write to express deep concern about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver electric shocks. If ICE proceeds with purchasing $20 million worth of electric-shock gloves, Congress needs a clear understanding of the device’s safety and authorized uses.”
Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) · Aug 27, 2026

Aug 25, 2026· Updated

ICE Arrests a 5-Year-Old on His Way to a Soccer Game and Sends Him to the Country’s Only Family Detention Camp — a Federal Judge Appoints Outside Monitors, and ICE Blocks a Congressman From Visiting the Boy

On August 16, 2026, federal immigration agents stopped Victor Martinez Nieto in Austin, Texas, as he drove his five-year-old son, Liam Tadeo, to a soccer game. Video of the stop shows the crying child holding his handcuffed father's hand. Both were taken to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley — the only family detention facility in the United States, run under contract by the private prison company CoreCivic. Liam was supposed to start kindergarten that week. It was the second time in 2026 that a five-year-old named Liam was taken to Dilley. In January, ICE agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos on his walk home from preschool in Columbia Heights, Minnesota; a federal judge ordered him and his father released at the end of that month. The August arrest landed in the middle of a widening fight over the facility. The Texas Tribune reported on August 12 that federal data showed many children at Dilley had been held 100 days or longer, far past the 20-day limit set by the Flores settlement, and that in the first year after the camp reopened in March 2025 the administration held roughly 3,000 children there, more than half of them beyond 20 days. On August 18, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee appointed a special master, Andrea Sheridan Ordin, and an independent monitor, Dr. Paul Wise, with authority to inspect facilities, review records and interview detainees — citing minors confined for 50, 91 and even 323 days. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who had led 111 House Democrats in a late-July letter demanding DHS shut Dilley down and terminate the CoreCivic contract, tried to visit Liam Tadeo and was turned away: ICE said the boy's father had not given permission, though Castro's office said it had obtained the mother's. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, demanded the release of Liam and of at least 112 children then held at the camp. DHS and CoreCivic have said Dilley meets federal detention standards and undergoes regular audits.

“I was with Liam’s mother on Monday as she found out what it means to have your child held hostage by ICE.”
Gregorio Casar (D-TX) · Aug 25, 2026

Aug 25, 2026· Updated

Federal Judge Strikes Down Trump's $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee as Unlawful Tax

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston struck down Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee on June 8, 2026, ruling it an unlawful tax that only Congress has the power to impose. The fee — announced in September 2025 and raising costs from roughly $2,000–$5,000 to $100,000 per application — was challenged by 20 Democratic state attorneys general. The ruling drew bipartisan praise from lawmakers citing impacts on healthcare and education staffing; the White House vowed to appeal.

“I don't believe that for a minute, that they have trouble finding people with skills in the U.S. to fill those jobs. This isn't about skills. This is about money. It's about cheap labor.”
Riley Moore (R-WV) · Aug 25, 2026

ICE Has Detained More Than 50 Spouses and Parents of Active-Duty Troops — an Army Sergeant’s Wife Was Deported to Honduras Days After the Sailor on the USS Lincoln Learned His Father Was Taken in Key West

An Associated Press investigation published August 5, 2026 found that more than 50 immediate family members of active-duty U.S. troops — spouses and parents — have been placed in federal immigration detention since January 2025. At least six had been deported, one self-deported, and eight remained in custody when the AP published. Separately, DHS data obtained by Congress showed that between January 20, 2025 and January 26, 2026, ICE arrested 125 military veterans, nearly two-thirds of whom had no active criminal warrant, and moved to deport at least 282 veterans and family members. The through-line is a policy change: in April, ICE rescinded its long-standing guidance treating military service as a "significant mitigating factor" in whether to pursue enforcement, replacing it with a far less protective policy. Processing time for military parole in place — the discretionary protection recruiters have long cited to non-citizen family members — has more than doubled, to about 12 months. On August 9, 2026, a bicameral group of Democrats sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding an accounting. It was led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, Delia Ramirez and Lizzie Fletcher, and signed by roughly 55 members in all, including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi. The letter argues the Pentagon's new coordination with DHS — detaining people on military property and handing them to ICE — turns bases into "traps" and creates a chilling effect on service members and their families, who "may avoid accessing bases, medical care, housing offices, or support services — or leave the military entirely." The signers set an August 23 deadline for answers. The Pentagon declined to comment and said it would reply directly to the authors. Two cases put faces on the numbers in the last week of August. On Monday, August 24, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo — wife of Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, stationed at Fort Bliss — was deported to Honduras, at least the seventh military spouse or parent removed under the crackdown. She was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near the base; she had no known criminal record, and her appeal and military parole-in-place application were still pending. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, had opened a congressional inquiry into her case and visited her in detention. Two days earlier, in Key West, Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, a Nicaraguan handyman of nearly 20 years' residence whose son Joshua is a sailor in his ninth month aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln — the carrier already at the center of a Senate inquiry over its record 250-day deployment. DHS has not disputed the pattern; it has defended it. "Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation's laws," the department said of the Aviles arrest, adding that "U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws." Republican chairmen of the Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees, Roger Wicker and Jerry Moran, did not respond to press requests for comment.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for. There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”
Veronica Escobar (D-TX) · Aug 24, 2026

Aug 24, 2026· Updated

ICE Immigration Crackdown in Minnesota

Federal immigration enforcement operation "Metro Surge" in Minneapolis-St. Paul has sparked protests, economic boycotts, and political backlash after two fatal shootings by federal agents. The crackdown has led to hundreds of businesses closing in solidarity, state legislators nationwide proposing limits on ICE cooperation, and a growing constitutional clash between state and federal authorities. In August 2026 the operation produced a second scandal. Court filings in the Minneapolis conspiracy prosecution — reported by the Minnesota Reformer on August 13 and detailed further in documents covered by NPR on August 25 — showed that DHS ran a parallel covert surveillance campaign, codenamed in part "Operation Puppet Master," against labor unions, environmental groups, churches and community organizations that had protested the crackdown. Undercover agents attended a meeting at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and a public library gathering, photographed license plates, built dossiers on attendees including their families and jobs, and subpoenaed the financial records of unions including the Communications Workers of America and SEIU. None of the organizations was accused of criminal wrongdoing. On August 24, House Oversight Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) sent records demands to Attorney General Todd Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The Justice Department defended the operation in a court filing, calling undercover membership in the groups it was investigating "a standard law enforcement practice."

“Law enforcement in a free and democratic society depends on the officers entrusted with authority to act within the rules and safeguards of our legal system.”
Robert Garcia (D-CA) · Aug 24, 2026

The First Deportation Flight to Haiti After TPS Ends Lands in Cap-Haïtien With 161 People — Into a Country the U.S. Government Itself Bars Its Own Citizens From Flying Into

On Thursday, August 20, 2026, an ICE charter carrying 161 people left Alexandria, Louisiana and landed at Cap-Haïtien — the first deportation flight to Haiti since the Trump administration formally terminated Temporary Protected Status for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals, a termination the Supreme Court affirmed in June. Those aboard included former TPS holders as well as people who had completed prison sentences. DHS has said it plans twice-weekly flights. The destination is itself the story: the U.S. government's own ban on commercial flights into Port-au-Prince, in force through early September because of gang violence, forced the flight to land 130 miles north in Cap-Haïtien. The United Nations has warned that Haiti — where armed groups control most of the capital and more than a million people are displaced — cannot absorb mass returns. Local officials in Cap-Haïtien said they were not ready. Democratic lawmakers who have spent two years trying to extend Haitian TPS by statute responded within hours. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who led the House effort to extend the designation, called the deportations "cruel and shameful." Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), co-chair of the Haiti Caucus, said the removals were "a humanitarian betrayal that will stain America for generations." Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), whose Cincinnati-area district has one of the country's larger recently arrived Haitian populations, said the deportations were "inhumane." Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called the flight "utterly shameful," and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said it was "cruel" to strip the protections now. No congressional Republican was found on the record about the flight in the first 48 hours.

“Our Haitian neighbors asked only for safety from the gang violence, rampant sexual exploitation, and vicious anarchy that has totally overtaken their nation. Donald Trump saw their suffering, and asked only how he could make it worse. His act to force thousands of men, women, and children back into the same hell they barely escaped with their lives is a humanitarian betrayal that will stain America for generations.”
Yvette Clarke (D-NY) · Aug 21, 2026

San Diego County Votes 3-2 to Throw ICE and Border Patrol Off Its Firing Ranges — the Elected Sheriff Bans ICE but Keeps CBP, and the Acting ICE Director Calls It "Political Obstruction"

On August 18, 2026, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to terminate the agreements that let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection train at the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center on Alta Road in Otay Mesa — a county-owned facility a few miles from the Mexican border — and at a Navy facility the county leases. The proposal came from Supervisors Paloma Aguirre and Terra Lawson-Remer, who framed it as a refusal to let county property underwrite federal immigration raids. Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe provided the third vote; Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond voted no, arguing that badly behaved agents are an argument for more training, not less. Separately and on the same day, Sheriff Kelly Martinez — an independently elected officer who controls the range's day-to-day operations — announced she was barring ICE from sheriff's training sites and firearms qualifications, but would continue to allow CBP access, citing the harm to cross-border communities if the roughly 1,700 CBP officers who qualify there had to go elsewhere. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott called the board's vote "unprecedented." On August 20, Acting ICE Director David Venturella issued a statement saying the agency "will not allow political obstruction" to keep its officers from training.

“ICE will not allow political obstruction to prevent our officers and agents from receiving the training they need to safely and effectively enforce the laws of the United States and carry out President Trump's mandate to restore integrity to our immigration system.”
David Venturella (R) · Aug 20, 2026

Aug 20, 2026· Updated

A 4-Foot-11 Man Walking to Work in Arlington Is Tasered by ICE and Wakes Up With a Brain Bleed — Then the Ankle Monitor ICE Fitted Him With Blocks the MRI His Doctors Ordered

At about 6:30 a.m. on August 11, 2026, José Mejía Hernández, 45, was walking to work in Arlington, Virginia when two trucks pulled up and men got out and ran at him. He did not know who they were, according to his attorney, and he ran. He believes he was hit in the back with a stun device. He remembers nothing after that. He woke in a hospital with a brain hemorrhage, blackened eyes, facial lacerations and cuts requiring stitches — and two ICE officers at his bedside, who his lawyer Carlos Jurado says never left, meaning he was never given a private moment with his doctors. He was discharged within 72 hours, fitted with a GPS ankle monitor and handed immigration forms. When doctors ordered an MRI more than a week later to measure the bleeding and swelling in his brain, the metal ankle monitor made the scan impossible, and ICE refused to remove it. "Mr. Mejia Hernandez is 4'11," Jurado said. "He's 125 pounds. This man is not a Division 1 athlete." The Department of Homeland Security disputes the account. It said Mejía Hernández "attempted to flee from the scene requiring ICE to use necessary force to gain control of the situation," and called it "FALSE" that he was unconscious and woke in a hospital bed, saying officers rendered aid and asked the responsive individual if he was okay. The incident occurred a day after an ICE agent pointed a loaded gun at U.S. citizen Carolina Molina a few miles away in Falls Church — an encounter her dashcam contradicted DHS's account of — and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said he was "certainly very concerned that it's the same group of ICE agents running the corridor along Columbia Pike." Beyer called the injuries "extremely disturbing" and told constituents to "exercise extreme caution," saying ICE agents in Northern Virginia "are disappearing people, and they are all too frequently becoming out of control or violent." Arlington's elected prosecutor and county board chair both said publicly that they were investigating what they could. Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said "no one is above the law — not any individual, not law enforcement, and not federal officials." County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said ICE does not communicate with the county about its operations at all.

“We’re certainly very concerned that it’s the same group of ICE agents running the corridor along Columbia Pike.”
Don Beyer (D-VA) · Aug 20, 2026

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