A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from enforcing its new immigration law that would make it a crime to enter the state without legal authorization to be in the United States. The ruling, issued just days before the law was set to go into effect on Monday, is the latest legal setback for Republican-controlled states that have [tested](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/15/us/politics/republican-states-immigration-laws.html) the limits of their role in immigration by [passing their own legislation](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/us/texas-immigration-republican-states.html?searchResultPosition=1) meant to crack down on people who crossed the border illegally. The Justice Department maintains that only the federal government can regulate and enforce immigration. A Texas law that would have given state and local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented migrants was [put on hold](https://www.nytimes.com/article/texas-border-law-challenge-explainer.html) by a federal appeals court in March. The Supreme Court had briefly let the law stand but returned the case to the appeals court, which decided to pause enforcement of it. Then, in May, a federal judge temporarily [blocked](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/us/florida-undocumented-immigrant-transport.html) part of a Florida law that made it a crime to transport unauthorized immigrants into the state. And in mid-June, an Iowa law that would have made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the country was [put on pause](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/us/iowa-immigration-ruling.html?searchResultPosition=2) by a district court. In the Oklahoma case, U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones [wrote](https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/oag/documents/news-documents/2024/june/Preliminary%20Injunction%20Order%20-%20Immigration.pdf) in his ruling that the state “may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration,” but the state “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.” He issued a preliminary injunction, pausing enforcement of the law while a case over the law’s constitutionality continues. Under the new law, willfully entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal immigration status would be a [state crime](http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2023-24%20ENR/hB/HB4156%20ENR.PDF) called an “impermissible occupation.” A first offense would be a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine; a subsequent offense would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail and a $1,000 fine. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F29%2Fus%2Foklahoma-immigration-law-judge.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F29%2Fus%2Foklahoma-immigration-law-judge.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F29%2Fus%2Foklahoma-immigration-law-judge.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F29%2Fus%2Foklahoma-immigration-law-judge.html).

It was just days into his first term [when President Trump issued an order banning the entry of people from several predominantly Muslim countries](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/trump-syrian-refugees.html). An SOS went out to immigration lawyers across New York to head to Kennedy Airport, where arriving passengers were already being detained. By noon, hundreds of lawyers were interviewing relatives and friends of travelers who were being held, challenging their detention and drafting petitions for their release. The mobilization that morning in 2017 spawned a network of hundreds of lawyers who are now ready to fight the crackdown on immigrants that Mr. Trump promised to carry out in a second term in office. After his decisive victory over Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump is expected to name key cabinet choices in the coming days and weeks, including his nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Volunteer lawyers rushed to Kennedy Airport in January 2017 to assist travelers detained in President Trump’s issued an executive order barring visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F10%2Fus%2Ftrump-immigration-court-lawsuits.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F10%2Fus%2Ftrump-immigration-court-lawsuits.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F10%2Fus%2Ftrump-immigration-court-lawsuits.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F10%2Fus%2Ftrump-immigration-court-lawsuits.html).

President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly clashed with Democratic cities and states that adopted policies offering “sanctuary” to undocumented immigrants during his first term. Now, both sides are gearing up for round two. During Trump’s first term, sanctuary cities refused to allow local law enforcement to share information with federal immigration agents or hand over immigrants in their custody. This time around, many are planning to do the same, even if doing so draws them into a fight with the second Trump administration. Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a named contributor to its Project 2025 manifesto, has indicated the incoming administration plans to make sanctuary jurisdictions targets for “[mass deportations](https://www.vox.com/politics/380582/mass-deportations-trump-history-alien-enemies).” Homan said recently he hopes that local law enforcement will cooperate with requests from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hand over undocumented immigrants already in their custody, especially when they pose a public safety threat. “What mayor or governor doesn’t want public safety threats out of their communities?” he [told the Center Square](https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_8aa7f940-ab56-11ef-be93-7f4765c1a0d0.html). “Their No. 1 responsibility is to protect their communities. That’s exactly what we are going to do.” Most Democratic leaders, however, have made it clear that they will not accept federal government overreach on deportations and that they are preparing to challenge Trump’s immigration policies in court. “We’re not looking for a fight from the Trump administration, but if he attacks our progress, we’ll fight back,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Vox. “Immigrants are such a critical part of who we are … who we will be.” In his first term, Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary jurisdictions took two forms: attempting to withhold federal funding from them and challenging their policies in court. In 2017, the Trump administration sought to block sanctuary cities from receiving federal law enforcement grants. A number of Democratic state attorneys general sued, including on behalf of New York state and city, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Three appeals courts [reached different conclusions](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/court-rules-trump-administration-can-withhold-grants-sanctuary-cities-n1143511) on those legal challenges, setting up a US Supreme Court fight in 2020. After Trump lost the election that year, however, the Supreme Court [dismissed the case](https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/03/court-dismisses-sanctuary-cities-petitions/) at the request of the Biden administration. That left the underlying legal questions in the case unresolved. However, Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and director of its office at New York University School of Law, said that the Constitution’s 10th Amendment protecting states’ rights provides a strong defense for sanctuary cities and states going forward. “I don’t think the last word on this issue from the Supreme Court has been heard,” he said. “The 10th Amendment is the best defense that states and localities still have as to why they shouldn’t be penalized because they’re not fully cooperating with the federal government.” The Trump administration also challenged [several California state laws](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/us/politics/justice-department-california-sanctuary-cities.html) in court, arguing the laws interfered with the administration’s federal immigration enforcement agenda and were unconstitutional. One of those laws was the “California [Values Act](https://www.aclusocal.org/en/know-your-rights/california-values-act-sb-54),” signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2017. The law prevents state and local police and sheriffs from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in a number of ways: They cannot ask about an individual’s immigration status, arrest an individual on the basis of most immigration violations alone, share an individual’s personal information with federal immigration agents unless otherwise publicly available, hand someone in local police custody over to federal immigration agents (with some exceptions), and more. Another California law challenged by the Trump administration was the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, which barred businesses from sharing employee records with immigration agents absent a court order or a subpoena. It also required employers to provide notice of upcoming inspections of workers’ employment authorization documents, given that undocumented immigrants do not have valid ones. An appeals court ultimately upheld the Values Act but struck down the parts of the Immigrant Worker Protection Act prohibiting record-sharing. The US Supreme Court refused to hear the Trump administration’s appeal of that ruling at the time, meaning the ultimate constitutionality of the law remains unsettled. That means Trump could revive and expand the tactics he used to target sanctuary cities last time, and it’s not clear whether they would hold up in court, setting the stage for a new round of legal battles in the years to come. Trump is again preparing to punish sanctuary jurisdictions interfering with his immigration agenda. Homan suggested on a [recent appearance on the talk show _Dr. Phil_](https://www.foxnews.com/media/incoming-border-czar-warns-sanctuary-city-mayors-get-hell-out-way-prosecuted) that the incoming administration would go as far as to prosecute people who attempt to impede federal immigration enforcement. “If you knowingly conceal or harbor an illegal alien from a police officer, it is a felony. To impede a federal law enforcement officer is a felony, so don’t cross that line,” he said. “We will present these prosecutions, so you know, don’t test us!” Trump’s advisers are also [reportedly discussing](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/26/trump-mass-deportation-sanctuary-cities-doge-immigration/) reviving and expanding his previous attempt to condition federal funding to Democratic cities on cooperation with federal immigration agents. While his first administration focused on law enforcement grants, some in his circle are hoping to tackle other streams of funding, too. There is a potentially wide range to consider as cities and states get federal money for everything from infrastructure to education. “Not an iota, not a cent of government spending, should go to subsidize this,” Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s pick to co-chair [his new “Department of Government Efficiency,”](https://www.vox.com/policy/387382/musk-trump-balance-budget-doge) [told ABC](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/26/trump-mass-deportation-sanctuary-cities-doge-immigration/) last month. “Not to sanctuary cities, not to federal aid to people who are in this country illegally.” Trump would likely be limited in efforts to withhold funding by a 1974 law that restricts the president’s [ability to cancel government spending unilaterally](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/07/trump-budget-impoundment-congress/?itid=lk_inline_manual_31). If Trump were able to [convince Congress to overturn that law](https://www.vox.com/politics/388393/donald-trump-congress-impoundment-budget-supreme-court) or successfully challenges it in court, however, he would likely have more leeway to restrict funding to sanctuary cities without congressional approval. Trump is also reportedly looking to [revoke agency policy](https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/trump-scrap-restriction-ice-arrests-churches-schools-rcna183688) preventing ICE arrests at sensitive locations, including schools and churches. He could do so unilaterally on his first day in office. Many mayors and attorneys general in blue states have lined up in support of sanctuary policies heading into Trump’s second term. Bonta has already pledged to take the administration to court if it tries to withhold funding to sanctuary jurisdictions again. “It was an unconstitutional attempt to coerce California against its state’s rights,” he said. “If they attempt to do that again, we’ll bring them to court again, and we will argue that our 10th Amendment rights, our state’s rights, prevent such conditioning of grant funding to us.” Bonta also said that any attempt Trump makes to deport US citizens together with their undocumented family members — something the [president-elect has floated](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-aims-end-birthright-citizenship-says-american-citizens-family-il-rcna183274) — would be unconstitutional and that his mass deportation plan is bound to violate individuals’ due process rights. Most [Democratic leaders have echoed](https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/sanctuary-cities-trump-deportation-plans/) Bonta’s statements, but there is one notable exception: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has expressed willingness to work with the Trump administration on its deportation goals. Adams is [reportedly considering](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/18/trump-new-york-sanctuary-laws-00195205) working with the Trump administration to target “violent individuals.” He has insisted he would not go further than that, but immigrant rights groups have raised concerns that he might anyway, worried that the mayor will leave New York City’s half-a-million undocumented immigrants more vulnerable to deportation than they were last time Trump was president. “Mayor Adams has repeatedly demonized undocumented immigrants, from implying that they can be stripped of their right to due process to using them as scapegoats for his mismanagement of the City budget,” the group Make the Road NY said in a statement. Adams [told Fox](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/18/trump-new-york-sanctuary-laws-00195205) that his legal team will sit down with the president-elect’s to explore the possibility of an executive order that could override New York City’s sanctuary laws. Those laws currently place limits on information-sharing with federal immigration authorities and prevent the city from honoring requests from ICE to detain people. He also said that his administration is looking into exceptions to New York City law preventing any ICE officer from entering a city government building. That would potentially allow ICE to access the city jail on Rikers Island, as Homan has requested. Adams’s posture is a reflection of the changing politics of immigration among Democrats in recent years after apprehensions at the southern border reached record highs and many blue cities strained to absorb immigrants arriving on buses from border states. Under Biden, Democrats embraced a [right-wing border security bill](https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/5/24062710/senate-immigration-bill-border-security-ukraine-2024) that represented a sharp turn from their emphasis on immigrants’ rights and contributions to the country. “This three and a half years of border arrivals left a long shadow on the immigration policy and politics of our country in a way not fully appreciated,” Chishti said. “To say that we should welcome every immigrant in our city is not where the center of gravity of the Democratic Party is today.” While other Democrats aren’t as vocal as Adams in supporting cooperation with the incoming Trump administration, others haven’t been as full-throated in their support of sanctuary policies. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, for instance, [said last month](https://www.axios.com/local/philadelphia/2024/12/10/mass-deportations-sanctuary-city-cherelle-parker) that she did not know what would happen in the future to the city’s sanctuary policies, even though a spokesperson for her office told Vox that those policies remain in place for now. That tepid commitment suggests the ground may be shifting even outside of New York City. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief See More: * [Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump) * [Immigration](https://www.vox.com/immigration) * [Policy](https://www.vox.com/policy) * [Politics](https://www.vox.com/politics) * [Trump Administration](https://www.vox.com/trump-administration)

People attending recent mandatory immigration check-ins or court appearances have been escorted out in federal custody after the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) allegedly tricked, lied to or otherwise deceived them as part of its mass deportation campaign. Amid a blitz of immigration-related policy changes over the last few weeks, [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) and his subordinates have greenlit the ability of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to conduct potential civil enforcement operations at [courthouses](https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/ice-issues-interim-guidance-for-civil-immigration-enforcement-at-or-near-courthouses/#/tab-policy-documents), including in [immigration courts](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1387301/dl?inline). They have also [reportedly](https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/26/ice-arrests-raids-trump-quota/) set daily arrest quotas between at least 1,200 and 1,500 and [gotten angry](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-angry-deportation-numbers-are-not-higher-rcna191273) when agents have not consistently met those targets – pressure from the top that is probably incentivizing officers on the ground to go after the lowest-hanging fruit instead of people with serious criminal records. There’s no lower-hanging fruit than immigrants following the rules, who reliably show up when they are called in for [immigration check-ins or court dates.](https://portal.ice.gov/immigration-guide/check-ins) And, already, anecdotes from around the country demonstrate how Ice is setting traps for people to walk into as their family members look on, helpless. Attorneys in New York [say](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/immigrants-fear-ice-appointments-deportations-rcna189803) dozens of their clients have been detained and deported after reporting for seemingly routine check-ins related to their immigration cases since Trump’s electoral victory in November. Two of them, a mother and her young daughter, didn’t even know they had lost their appeal to stay in the US when they arrived for their appointment. They were deported the next day. [ How a faded New York hotel became a lethal political battleground ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/16/eric-adams-new-york-mayor-corruption-charges-elon-musk-migrant-hotel) For others in New York state, Ice check-ins now [mean](https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2025/01/23/immigration-policies-impacting-people-in-syracuse) confiscated passports, ankle monitor requirements and fingerprinting for kids. In neighboring New Jersey, non-citizens are being [arrested](https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2025/01/31/ice-raids-nj-feds-targeting-not-just-criminals/78035332007/) at their appointments as well. And in Florida, family members and advocates have accused immigration enforcement officials of luring community members into a government contractor’s office, supposedly to fix an issue [with their](https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/migrants-detained-at-delray-beach-immigration-office-were-tricked-families-say/3528540/) monitoring device or to [sign a paper,](https://cbs12.com/news/local/sting-operation-targets-migrants-in-delray-beach-raises-concern-over-immigration-tactics-january-31-2025) only to take them into custody. One of the people affected by these tactics was a Miami-Dade county [middle school science teacher](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article299947014.html) who had lived in the US since he was 13 years old and [reportedly](https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/miami-dade-teacher-deported-by-ice-after-being-detained-at-immigration-check-up/3538525/) had Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) legal protections, which meant he should have been deprioritized for deportation. Despite that, he was arrested at his regular immigration appointment just before Trump was inaugurated and has since been returned to Honduras. Elsewhere, a father of four who had lived in the US for two decades and whose only infraction was a traffic stop [was told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/05/undocumented-immigrants-trump-policies-ohio-deportations/) at his 22 January check-in outside Cleveland, Ohio, that he had two weeks to buy a flight returning to Guatemala in February, or else Ice would track him down. And a week later, in an Ogden, Utah, court for relatively minor offenses, Ice [was waiting](https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/02/05/utah-man-unexpectedly-taken-into/) for a man who pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of impaired driving. The man’s wife and daughter had to stand by while they learned immigration agents would whisk their loved one away, and even the judge was regretful, saying he didn’t know Ice would be there and using the word “_triste_” – “sad” in Spanish – to describe his remorse. From this flurry of reports, it’s clear that the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) is catching immigrants long in the US, many of whom have negligible or no criminal histories, in its dragnet of enhanced enforcement. By arresting people who actually report for required meetings and adjudications, officials are also in effect punishing them for not absconding. And while there has always been [a risk](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/ice-arrests-deportations-interior#:~:text=At%2Dlarge%20arrests%20can%20also,records%E2%80%94to%20locate%20removable%20noncitizens.) of apprehension at Ice check-ins, it’s a seemingly counterintuitive approach to improving immigration enforcement to harm those who regularly come forward as they are directed. Similar concerns exist around enforcement actions at court – and especially immigration courts. When non-citizens don’t show up for their immigration proceedings, they are often ordered removed as a no-show. Yet, if word circulates that Ice agents are hanging around immigration court buildings, that may very well dissuade defendants, witnesses and family members from attending hearings based on fears they could become collateral damage during an operation, even if theyhave done nothing wrong except remain in the country without permission. This strategy targeting those who are complying with what Ice and the courts tell them to do also reveals a certain level of shortsightedness within the administration. Trump’s voracious appetite for more and more immigration arrests may be somewhat sated for the moment if officers go after people who are the easiest to snag because they literally turn themselves in by appearing for check-ins and hearings. But immigrant communities are smart with strong networks, and soon people will hear about the dangers of attending. Then, Ice will probably lose that pipeline of detentions and deportations. Meanwhile, the country will be worse off when immigrants with legitimate pathways are prevented from pursuing them. And instead of the orderly immigration adjudication process ostensibly intended by these measures, more chaos is likely to ensue as fear takes hold. In the meantime, students are missing their science teacher. Children are saying goodbye to their fathers. And it’s unclear that the US public is safer because of any of it.

Behind the reinforced doors of courtroom number two, at a remote detention centre in central [Louisiana](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/louisiana), Lu Xianying sat alone before an [immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) judge unable to communicate. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit that drooped from his slight frame, he waited as court staff called three different translation services, unable to find an interpreter proficient in his native Gan Chinese. Like almost all of the 17 detainees appearing before Judge Kandra Robbins during removal proceedings on Tuesday morning, Lu had no attorney because there is no right to legal representation in [US immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) proceedings. He sat silently, evidently confused. A substitute interpreter was eventually found, and began translating the judge’s questions into Mandarin. “I am afraid to return to China,” he told the court, as he described how he had already filed an asylum application after crossing the border into [Texas](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/texas) in March 2024. Lu said he was worried a lawyer had stolen his money and not submitted his asylum claim. Lu, who had only recently been detained**,** struggled to understand, as the judge asked him to list his country of return should he be deported. “Right now my order is to be removed?” He asked. “Or should I go to court?” The judge explained that he was present in court, and provided him another asylum [application form](https://www.uscis.gov/i-589). His next hearing was scheduled for April. The [LaSalle immigration court](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/07/donald-trump-immigration-court-deportation-lasalle), inside a sprawling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre in rural Jena, Louisiana, has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks after the former Columbia graduate student [Mahmoud Khalil](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/mahmoud-khalil) was transferred here earlier this month. His case has drawn international attention as the Trump administration attempts to deport the pro-Palestinian activist under [rarely used executive provisions of US immigration law](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/mahmoud-khalil-first-amendment-trump). The government is [fighting vigorously](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mahmoud-khalil-court-judge-rcna198539) to keep Khalil’s case in Louisiana and he is due to appear again at the LaSalle court for removal proceedings on 8 April. [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/ice-detention-centers-immigration-asylum#img-2) An Ice detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, on 21 March. Photograph: Stephen Smith/AP But it has also renewed focus on the network of remote immigration detention centres that stretch between Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, [known as “Detention Alley”](https://tracreports.org/reports/753/) – where 14 of the country’s 20 largest detention centres are clustered. And now where other students have since been sent after being arrested thousands of miles away. Badar Khan Suri, a research student at Georgetown University, was arrested in Virginia [last week](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-administration-attempting-to-deport-pro-palestinian-student-at-georgetown-university) and sent to a detention centre in Alexandria, Louisiana, and then on to another site, Prairieland in eastern Texas. This week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, was [arrested in Massachusetts](https://apnews.com/article/tufts-student-detained-massachusetts-immigration-6c3978da98a8d0f39ab311e092ffd892) and sent to the South Louisiana Ice processing centre in the swamplands of Evangeline parish. These distant detention facilities and court systems have long been associated with [rights violations](https://www.laaclu.org/sites/default/files/inside_the_black_hole_systemic_human_rights_abuses_against_immigrants_detained_disappeared_in_louisiana.pdf), [poor medical treatment](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/detainees-advocates-decry-horrific-conditions-louisiana-ice-detention-rcna92339) and [due process concerns](https://law.tulane.edu/sites/default/files/TLS%20No%20End%20In%20Sight%20Single%20Pages%20FINAL.pdf), which advocates argue are only likely to intensify during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and promise to carry out mass deportations that has already led to [a surge in the detention population](https://tracreports.org/whatsnew/email.250317.html#:~:text=(20%20Mar%202025)%20According%20to,when%20ICE%20detained%2049%2C419%20individuals.). But rarely do cases within these centres attract much public attention or individual scrutiny. “Most of the folks in detention in [Louisiana](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/louisiana) aren’t the ones making the news,” said Andrew Perry, an immigrant rights attorney at the ACLU of Louisiana. “But they are experiencing similar, if not the same, treatment as those who are.” To observe a snapshot of the [more than 1,100 other detainees](https://tracreports.org/immigration/detentionstats/facilities.html) confined at the facility also holding Khalil, the Guardian travelled to Jena and witnessed a full day inside the LaSalle court, which is rarely visited by journalists. Dozens lined up for their short appearances before a judge and were sworn in en masse. Some expressed severe health concerns, others frustration over a lack of legal representation. Many had been transferred to the centre from states hundreds of miles away. [Map showing top 20 largest ICE detention centers](https://interactive.guim.co.uk/datawrapper/embed/3pftW/1/) Earlier in the morning Wilfredo Espinoza, a migrant from Honduras, appeared before Judge Robbins for a [procedural update](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/reference-materials/ic/chapter-4/15) on his asylum case that was due for a full hearing in May. Espinoza, who coughed throughout his appearance and had a small bandage on his face, had no lawyer and informed the court he wished to abandon his asylum application “because of my health”. The circumstances of his detention and timing and location of his arrest by Ice were not made clear in court. He suffered from hypertension and fatty liver disease, he said through a Spanish translator. “I’ve had three issues with my heart here,” he said. “I don’t want to be here any more. I can’t be locked up for this long. I want to leave.” The judge asked him repeatedly if he was entering his decision of his own free will. “Yes,” he said. “I just want to leave here as quickly as possible.” The judge ordered his removal from the US. Substantiated allegations of medical neglect have plagued the Jena facility for years. In 2018, the civil rights division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [examined the circumstances of four fatalities at the facility](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/lasalle-expert-memo-09-21-18.pdf), which is operated by the Geo Group, a private corrections company. All four deaths occurred between January 2016 and March 2017 and the DHS identified a pattern of delay in medical care, citing “failure of nursing staff to report abnormal vital signs”. At the South Louisiana Ice processing centre, an all-female facility that is also operated by the Geo Group and where Ozturk is now being held, the ACLU of Louisiana recently filed a complaint to the DHS’s civil rights division alleging an array of rights violations. These included inadequate access to medical care, with the complaint stating: “Guards left detained people suffering from severe conditions like external bleeding, tremors, and sprained limbs unattended to, refusing them access to diagnostic care”. The complaint was filed in December 2024, before the Trump administration moved [to gut the DHS’s civil rights division earlier this month](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/21/us-homeland-security-guts-three-oversight-offices). [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/ice-detention-centers-immigration-asylum#EmailSignup-skip-link-21) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion A spokesperson for the Geo Group said the company “strongly disagrees with the allegations that have been made regarding services we provide at Geo-contracted Ice processing centres” including the facility in Jena. “In all instances, our contracted services are monitored by the federal government to ensure strict compliance with applicable federal standards,” the spokesperson said, [pointing to Ice’s performance-based national detention standards](https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management/2011) that the company’s contracts are governed by. The spokesperson added: “These allegations are part of a longstanding, politically motivated, and radical campaign to abolish Ice and end federal immigration detention by attacking the federal government’s immigration facility contracts.” The DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Louisiana experienced a surge in immigration detention during the first Trump administration. At the end of 2016, the state had capacity for a little more than 2,000 immigrant detainees, which more than doubled within two years. A wave of new Ice detention centres opened in remote, rural locations often at facilities previously [used as private prisons](https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-facilities/winn-correctional-center). The state now holds the second largest number of detained immigrants, behind only Texas. Almost 7,000 people were held [as of February 2025](https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.html) at nine facilities in Louisiana, all operated by private companies. “It is this warehousing of immigrants in rural, isolated, ‘out of sight, of mind’ locations,” said Homero López, the legal director of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy in Louisiana and a former appellate immigration judge. “It’s difficult on attorneys, on family members, on community support systems to even get to folks. And therefore it’s a lot easier on government to present their case. They can just bulldoze people through the process.” At the LaSalle court this week, the Guardian observed detainees transferred from states as far away as Arizona, Florida and Tennessee. In an afternoon hearing, where 15 detainees made an application for bond, which would release them from custody and transfer their case to a court closer to home, only two were granted. Cases heard from detention are far less likely to result in relief. At LaSalle, 78.6% of asylum cases are rejected, compared with the national average of 57.7%, [according to the Trac immigration data project](https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.html). In Judge Robbins’s court, 52% of asylum applicants appear without an attorney. In the afternoon session, the court heard from Fernando Altamarino, a Mexican national, who was transferred to Jena from Panama City, Florida, more than 500 miles away. Altamarino had no criminal record, like [almost 50% of immigrants currently detained by Ice](https://tracreports.org/immigration/detentionstats/pop_agen_table.html). He had been arrested by agents about a month ago, after he received a traffic ticket following a minor car accident. He tried to resolve the matter at his local courthouse, and was instead detained by immigration authorities. Via his lawyer, the court heard his application for release. A letter from a leader in his local church described his role as a stalwart member of the congregation and “a man who truly embodies faith”. But a prosecutor for the DHS, who opposed all but one bond application that afternoon, argued that Altamarino, who had lived in the country for more than a decade, presented a flight risk due to his “very limited to non-existent family ties to the US”. The judge concurred, as Altamarino sat upright and listened through a translator. Despite acknowledging he was “not a danger to community”, she sided with the government and denied bond. Altamarino thanked the judge as he left the room, under watch of a guard. The heavy door closed behind him as he headed back into the void of America’s vast detention system.

Jennifer Vasquez Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a prison in El Salvador during a Trump administration deportation initiative On 12 March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was driving home with his young son in Maryland when he was stopped by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Agents took Mr Garcia into custody, then shuttled him to detention facilities in Louisiana and Texas. According to a federal judge, after three days, "without any notice, legal process, or hearing", Mr Garcia found himself back in his native El Salvador at an infamous prison known for housing gang members. The government said he was deported due to an "administrative error". But despite that, Mr Garcia remains incarcerated in El Salvador as lawyers debate the unusual intricacies of the case. A Maryland court ordered Mr Garcia be returned to the US, but Trump officials argued that they cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia. The administration also argued that the judge ordering his return lacked the authority to do so. On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on lower court orders while they consider the matter. Immigration experts say that as US President Donald Trump takes a hardline approach on illegal immigration, this case has the potential to upend due process for immigrants. "If the US Supreme Court were to accept \[the Trump administration's\] position, it would completely eviscerate any rule of law in the immigration process," Maureen Sweeney, director of the University of Maryland's Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice, told the BBC. "Because they could pick up anybody, at any time, and send them anywhere with no repercussions whatsoever." The Trump administration pushes back ------------------------------------ US District Judge Paula Xinis wrote in a filing Sunday that ICE officials did not follow procedures in the Immigration and Nationality Act when they deported Mr Garcia to El Salvador. She ruled the US must bring him back before midnight on Monday. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, writing that the US "has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street". Yet the Trump administration has argued that it cannot comply, saying Judge Xinis' filing is outside her jurisdiction. "Neither a federal district court nor the United States has authority to tell the Government of El Salvador what to do," US Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court. Nicole Hallett, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School said that while it is true - US district judges cannot order El Salvador to take action - they can order the US government to have Mr Garcia returned. She also said the US has previously facilitated the return of mistakenly deported individuals. Prof Hallett also questioned the government's claim that the US is powerless to compel El Salvador to release Mr Garcia, citing an agreement between the two countries. The US, under the Trump administration, paid El Salvador's government $6m to house prisoners it sends, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner. Top officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself have publicly touted the arrangement. "It's almost as if the Salvadoran government is acting as an agent of the US government," Ms Hallett said, arguing that this makes the release more plausible. Mr Garcia's lawyers argued that because El Salvador was detaining Mr Garcia "at the direct request and pursuant to financial compensation" from the US, the court could order the US government to request his return. Watch: 'I miss you so much', says wife of Salvadoran deported by mistake Mr Garcia is among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans deported under the Trump administration to El Salvador's notorious mega-prison. Officials allege they are gang members and therefore are subject to deportation. Mr Garcia, who is married to a US citizen, does not have any gang ties and has never been charged with a crime, his lawyer says. He was also protected by a "withholding of removal" order, which means the US government cannot send him back to El Salvador because he could face harm. The order dates back to 2019, when ICE first took Mr Garcia into custody and alleged he belonged to the MS-13 criminal organisation, an allegation he denied at the time. Such orders are common, immigration lawyers told the BBC, and are an alternative to asylum protections. "It was an unlawful act, for the US to return him to the country where he could not be returned," said Amelia Wilson, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Pace University. A judge ultimately granted Mr Garcia the 2019 order after he "testified about how he was a victim of gang violence in El Salvador when he was a teenager and he came to the US to escape all of that," his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wrote in a March 2025 affidavit. Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni acknowledged that at the time the "government did not appeal that decision, so it is final". The Trump administration now reiterates allegations that Mr Garcia belonged to MS-13, but Judge Xinis said the government made this claim "without any evidence" and had not produced a removal order or warrant. Supreme Court showdown looms ---------------------------- The Trump administration continues to press its case to the nation's highest court, setting up a potential showdown over the White House's deportation strategy. Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay on Monday night, pausing lower court rulings while the US Supreme Court considers the government's appeal. President Trump touted the stay as a victory, writing on Truth Social that the ruling allowed the president "to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself." Immigration lawyers, meanwhile, are watching Mr Garcia's case closely, considering it a test for how much power the administration can exert over US immigration. "If the Trump administration is trying to remove these individuals by bypassing the immigration courts," said Ms Wilson, "there's a direct and obvious line between what they're doing, and an effort by the administration to completely usurp judicial and due process."

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to [bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia](https://www.vox.com/scotus/408253/trump-supreme-court-order-abrego-garcia-el-salvador), the Maryland man it had sent to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison in what the government has conceded was an “administrative error.” Not one of the justices dissented from that ruling. The justices sent the case back to the federal trial court. The court asked for information by Friday morning on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and what steps the government has taken and will take going forward to facilitate his return. But the government came up empty-handed. Its lawyers said they couldn’t provide that information on time, effectively defying the court’s order. “Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,” they wrote in a court filing. Essentially, the administration is saying it can’t deliver information on Abrego Garcia on time because he is in the custody of a foreign government, and that facilitating his return may require sensitive foreign policy considerations. The US is paying the Salvadoran government to [imprison hundreds of deportees](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-09/about-90-of-migrants-sent-to-salvador-lacked-us-criminal-record), 90 percent of whom have no criminal record. But immigration law experts said that foreign policy cannot justify the Trump administration’s failure to return Abrego Garcia. “The idea that somehow this is something other than just picking up the phone and saying, ‘Get this guy back here,’ is absolute poppycock,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “The idea that this is some sort of sensitive foreign relations is BS.” This is the second time that the Trump administration has effectively ignored a court order. The first time, it [refused to turn around deportation flights](https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/trump-court-order-deportation-flights-contempt/) headed to El Salvador midair, arguing that US federal courts had no authority outside the US. On Friday afternoon, the judge ordered the administration to provide daily updates on its plan to bring Abrego Garcia back — as the government slow-walks an order to return a man it, by its own admission, put in grave danger via an “administrative error.” The Trump administration’s reluctance to provide any information about Abrego Garcia raises serious concerns about his safety. In 2019, an immigration judge granted Abrego Garcia relief from deportation to El Salvador because he faced the risk of being targeted by gangs. Though the government has accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, that was never proven in court. The prison where he was sent is known as a “[legal black hole](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7dHShfW5jDOB4WHkJGOkLa?si=AmxyCmtvTz6OEGqLEn0WXw)” and the site of numerous [documented human rights abuses](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/g-s1-54206/el-salvador-mega-prison-cecot). The US has [sent more than 200 people there](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-records-show-about-migrants-sent-to-salvadoran-prison-60-minutes-transcript/). “If the government is now refusing to acknowledge that he is somewhere in that country, that’s suspicious,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and author of several books on US immigration enforcement, including [_Welcome the Wretched_](https://thenewpress.com/books/welcome-wretched). “It’s alarming to see the Justice Department refuse to even acknowledge that he is there or anywhere else on the face of the earth.” The government’s actions are part of a larger picture of attacks on the rule of law, Schmidt said. “They’re targeting law firms that represent people against the government,” he said. “They’re defunding legal services. They’re putting people in obscure locations. They’re compromising the immigration courts.” There’s no telling how far protections for civil liberties could unravel from here, García Hernández said. A [recent Supreme Court ruling](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-08/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act-ruling-contains-an-ominous-threat) doesn’t provide much assurance: The justices found that the Trump administration could not deport people like Abrego Garcia to El Salvador [under an obscure, 18th-century law](https://www.vox.com/politics/404745/alien-enemies-act-trump-venezuela-history-world-war) without allowing them the opportunity to challenge their deportations in a US court. But that assumes that those targeted have access to legal counsel, and that’s hard to come by in some of the remote areas where they have been detained. While the Trump administration might now be [targeting unsympathetic figures](https://www.vox.com/politics/405489/trump-deportations-gang-pro-palestine-spech-power-grab) — people it accuses of ties to gangs — that might give way to broader assaults on individual rights. “They made it quite clear that they’re not just targeting people who present some kind of risk of bodily harm to those of us who live in the United States,” García Hernández said. “They’re also targeting people who they think present an ideological risk. And there’s no clear endpoint to that logic.” See More: * [Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump) * [Immigration](https://www.vox.com/immigration) * [Policy](https://www.vox.com/policy) * [Politics](https://www.vox.com/politics) * [Trump Administration](https://www.vox.com/trump-administration)

The White House’s message to non-citizens in the US in recent weeks has been clear. No matter how long they have lived in the country or what life-threatening conditions await them at home, if the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) thinks they don’t belong here then they don’t deserve an opportunity to meaningfully defend themselves before being detained and expelled, many loaded on to planes and, in some of the most extreme cases, essentially [disappeared](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/families-search-for-loved-ones-after-hundreds-taken-on-u-s-immigration-flights-disappear-from-online-locator). [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) is undermining the fundamental right to due process from several directions, whether by intimidating [law firms](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/trump-law-firm-executive-order), defying [and threatening](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/23/judges-trump-court-rulings) judges, or [attempting to](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/09/immigrants-legal-services-restored-asylum-seekers) defund children’s attorneys. The aim appears to be to cut off immigrants’ access to legal representation, while the effect is to erode their civil liberties. The end result is that it’s easier to deport people – and along the way the streamlining also makes it more likely that miscalculations will occur that separate families or return victims to their persecutors – [or both](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/ice-error-deported-maryland-man-el-salvador). One US circuit judge was particularly blunt when [she said](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/24/trump-deportation-venezuela) that “Nazis got better treatment” while facing repatriation during the second world war, compared with hundreds of Venezuelans who were recently sent to El Salvador’s infamous [maximum-security prison](https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-trump-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-dde4259e5dcd502101b7b8fbd3c03659), many without even a court hearing. In other legally dubious moves, Trump has [ended](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/guaranteeing-the-states-protection-against-invasion/) the right to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border, despite it still being enshrined in law. His subordinates have [paused](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/trump-signal-chat-middle-east-opinion) processing green cards for refugees, asylum seekers and some [Cubans](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-pauses-immigration-applications-for-certain-migrants-welcomed-under-biden/), even though they qualify. The administration has sent migrants, many of whom have no criminal record, from US soil offshore to Guantánamo Bay, where [detainees say](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/25/nx-s1-5306433/guantanamo-detainee-speaks-venezuela-trump-immigration-abuse) they have been shackled and beaten by American officers. And amid all of these actions undermining the rule of law – not to mention [human dignity](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/tufts-student-ice-asthma-attacks) – the Trump administration has systematically attacked any check on its power from lawyers or judges, who often embody the last line of defense against wrongful detention and deportation. Trump’s most explicit attempt yet to control the immigration bar came on 22 March. In a public-facing [memorandum](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preventing-abuses-of-the-legal-system-and-the-federal-court/) to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, he decried what he called attorneys’ and law firms’ “unscrupulous behavior” and went so far as to allege that lawyers “frequently coach clients to conceal their past or lie about their circumstances when asserting their asylum claims” in order to “deceive the immigration authorities and courts into granting them undeserved relief”. Then, to punish his adversaries for what he described as “frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation”, Trump [asked](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preventing-abuses-of-the-legal-system-and-the-federal-court/) Bondi to pursue sanctions against attorneys, directed both her and Noem to prioritize enforcing attorney discipline, and threatened to revoke lawyers’ and their firms’ security clearances and federal contracts. Again, his message was clear: attorneys who work on legal challenges that he doesn’t like – sometimes by simply defending their clients to the best of their ability – will face potential retribution that could seriously affect if not altogether doom their legal practice. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), a [16,000-plus-member organization](https://www.aila.org/about) for immigration attorneys, [called](https://www.aila.org/library/aila-rejects-administration-s-dangerous-restrictions-on-immigration-attorneys) the memo “chilling, “unfounded” and “dangerous”. Still, the group’s president, Kelli Stump, responded defiantly, saying that the “AILA and its members will not be intimidated”. Unlike criminal defendants, non-citizens don’t have a right to counsel in immigration court. So when they are unable to find an attorney on their own, even the most egregious mistreatment often goes unchecked, while textbook cases for legal relief get denied or are never filed. That’s part of why so many law firms have made immigration a pro bono priority in recent years, understanding that most migrants and asylum seekers can’t afford a private attorney. Yet even before Trump’s 22 March memo, many [firms](https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2025/02/21/big-law-touted-its-pro-bono-immigration-work-in-trumps-first-term-now-some-firms-are-clamming-up/?slreturn=20250326-43557) that had invested a great deal of time and resources into representing immigrants for free during the first Trump administration had fallen silent about their plans to fight against the current immigration crackdown. In fact, one of the firms that [was loudest](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/zero-tolerance-trump-asylum-family-separation-lawyers.html) about its immigration pro bono work during Trump’s first term, Paul, Weiss, has now [caved](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/us/politics/paul-weiss-firm-trump.html) to a number of general demands from Trump to avoid a legal battle that could have affected business. Unsurprisingly, when asked by the American Lawyer magazine about how the firm would defend immigrants over the next four years, Paul, Weiss stayed quiet. As Trump continues to target other law firms, asking for concessions and threatening executive action, immigration advocates [worry](https://www.borderreport.com/immigration/immigration-lawyers-fear-backlash-after-memo-warning-of-sanctions/) the 22 March memo will further discourage attorneys concerned for their own safety from taking cases. That, in turn, could make it even more difficult for people facing deportation to find legal representation. This matters a great deal: [research](https://tracreports.org/tracker/dynadata/2024_08/IF12158.pdf) suggests that detainees in immigration custody – now at the [highest level](https://tracreports.org/whatsnew/email.250228.html) since 2019 – are 10.5 times more likely to have a positive outcome if they are represented by an attorney. Likewise, the grant rate for asylum or other legal relief for unrepresented people is a dismal 19%, but that increases significantly to 47% in represented cases. Some of those disparities could be attributed to the fact that even pro bono attorneys may screen out the weakest cases and gravitate towards the strongest. But there’s still no denying that having representation changes the calculus for those in immigration proceedings. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/13/trump-immigration-due-process-legal-rights#EmailSignup-skip-link-17) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Perhaps the most extreme example of immigrants in need of legal counsel are the children who come to the US alone, who cannot reasonably defend themselves in court. Among these unaccompanied kids, past data indicates that those who had an attorney were more than seven times [more likely](https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/publications/representation-matters.pdf) to be able to stay legally in the country compared with those who didn’t. And yet the Trump administration is trying to [largely terminate](https://acaciajustice.org/coalition-of-legal-organizations-denounce-governments-termination-of-unaccompanied-kids-program/) a federally funded [program](https://acaciajustice.org/what-we-do/unaccompanied-children-program/) that provides attorneys for more than 26,000 unaccompanied children – some of them [infants](https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2025-03-26/unaccompanied-migrant-children-may-face-immigration-courts-alone-as-federal-government-cuts-legal-support-funds) or [toddlers](https://acaciajustice.org/coalition-of-legal-organizations-denounce-governments-termination-of-unaccompanied-kids-program/) – [reportedly](https://apnews.com/article/trump-legal-aid-unaccompanied-children-immigration-court-127a69ce69573d2d16c72a74dacef3ab) citing “the government’s convenience” to justify its decision. Affected organizations have [won](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/02/immigration-migrant-children-legal-aid) a temporary restraining order restoring the status quo for the program [after suing](https://abcnews.go.com/US/hhs-sued-cutting-program-legal-aid-migrant-children/story?id=120217217) the administration. But their victory may only prove temporary, and [one expert warned](https://apnews.com/article/trump-legal-aid-unaccompanied-children-immigration-court-127a69ce69573d2d16c72a74dacef3ab) “we have to be prepared for the worst, which is children going to court without attorneys all over the country” while expert government lawyers argue for their deportation. At the same time, other court activity involving immigration has propelled concerns about a potential constitutional crisis, given that the executive branch is seemingly ignoring judicial orders left and right. In the most high-profile case, the Trump administration carried out removal flights of Venezuelans to El Salvador despite a judge ordering them stopped, and then federal authorities [refused](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/us/politics/judge-ruling-trump-deportations-alien-enemies-act.html) to comply with the judge’s request for more information. As for Trump, he [called](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/18/nx-s1-5332086/trump-lawsuits) for the judge’s impeachment and described him as a “Radical Left Lunatic”. The US supreme court earlier this week unanimously upheld the constitutional right to habeas corpus, a [crucial pillar of due process](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/supreme-court-trump-deportations), in that case – but removed the temporary block on Trump using an [aged wartime law](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/alien-enemies-act-explainer-can-trump-apply-a-wartime-law-to-deport-gang-members) to justify those fast-tracked expulsions, in a split [emergency ruling](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/us-supreme-court-deportations). Since then, court [decisions](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/politics/trump-deportations-venezuela-el-salvador.html) in Texas and New York have continued to challenge the idea that people can be sent away to a potential [lifetime prison term](https://www.axios.com/2025/04/09/kristi-noem-migrants-trump-ice-prison) without a chance to argue their case. In another lawsuit, a Brown University professor was [hastily](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha-alawieh-professor-deported.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250317&instance_id=150202&nl=the-morning&regi_id=110371034&segment_id=193651&user_id=224c737bae1a689c717f5bb8261c60df) deported, despite an order requiring the Trump administration to provide the federal district judge overseeing her case at least 48 hours’ notice before removing her. And in yet another, when a judge ordered the restart of the US’s refugee resettlement program, officials sabotaged their ability to comply by [revoking agreements](https://www.rescue.org/press-release/irc-responds-termination-state-department-grants-refugee-resettlement-program) with the agencies responsible for resettling refugees. Then, for a month, the officials seemingly [stalled](https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/status-report-confirms-government-is-undermining-court-ruling-to-resume-refugee-processing) until receiving a more favorable [ruling](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/court-allows-trump-administration-to-suspend-approval-of-new-refugees-amid-lawsuit) from a higher court. All of this is to say that what may seem like disconnected cases and separate issues are actually all elements of a wholesale attack on due process. Trump seeks the impunity he’s been waiting for to be able to do nearly whatever he wants with vulnerable immigrants. Who’s able to get in his way and who can’t – or won’t – is now testing what the United States stands for every day.

 INDIO, Calif. — When the nurse told Yasmelin Velazquez she was going to be hospitalized for a couple of days, Velazquez's anxiety spiked. "I can't stay!" she exclaimed. "I have immigration court tomorrow!" The hospitalization comes at a bad time. Missing her first court hearing the next day would almost guarantee a deportation order for the 36-year-old Venezuelan immigrant and her two young sons. She's especially on edge since receiving [an email](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border) from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two days earlier notifying her that her temporary status in the country was terminated. "It is time for you to leave the United States," the email read. "Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you." Velazquez is among the growing number of migrants who received the DHS email. All of them came to the U.S. through legal pathways now terminated by President Trump, or were given temporary protection from deportation after surrendering to immigration authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border. They are now left in limbo: Should they stay and continue the legal process? Could they be detained or deported while waiting for their day in court? NPR has followed Velazquez's immigration journey from Ciudad Juárez, México, where she waited 8 months to enter the U.S. via the CBP One app, a Biden-era legal pathway for asylum seekers. She became one of 900,000 people who used the app, which was the only way to schedule an immigration hearing in the U.S. at the time. But as her court date approached, Velazquez told NPR she was getting nervous. Migrants have been picked up by immigration authorities at court lately, and that could happen to her, too. Then, her doctor called during Velazquez's shift at Walmart. The doctor explained that she had some bad test results and might need to stay in the emergency room for a couple of days. After pushing back, Velazquez was cleared to leave the hospital. She will make it to court the next day – but the doctor warns her condition could worsen.   The sun had not risen when Velazquez, her partner, and her two little boys, 2-year-old Jeremías and 4-year-old Jordan, left their home in Indio, California, the next day. "Father God, be our lawyer, be our judge," they prayed. "Touch the heart of Judge Simmons." They are anxious — so they sing while they drive their used black SUV down the highway. After more than two hours on the road, the family pulls up at the immigration court in an industrial park in a Southern California suburb. A dozen or so other families make their way into the courtroom.   First hearings like this one are usually low-stakes. A judge validates the migrants' identities, and they decide whether to file for a form of relief, such as asylum. Then a second hearing is scheduled. But under Trump, anything can happen. Inside the courtroom, Velazquez and the kids sit in the first row of wooden benches. They wait an hour for their turn– long enough that the two-year-old pees his pants. Finally, the judge asks Velazquez whether she understands the reason she's in court: that the government believes she doesn't have a legal right to be in the U.S. "Yes," she replies quietly, adding that she's planning to claim asylum later this summer. The judge tells her to come back in August, this time with an attorney. The whole interaction only took a few minutes. Velazquez is free to go.   "I feel victorious," she tells NPR after the hearing, her relieved laughter ringing over the parking lot while her kids snack on juice and arepas. But their day isn't over yet. Next is another hour-long drive to Velazquez's regular in-person check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which she has to do every few months in addition to weekly calls and texts with the agent in charge of her parole. This week, the check-in seems scarier. There have been reports of migrants being picked up by agents as they go into the ICE office. And now, there's that email from DHS to worry about. Velazquez enters the office and meets with the agent assigned to her case. Eight minutes later, she comes out again, beaming a huge smile. "Today, my future looks marvelous," she says. She was not detained today, but her optimism might be premature.  She has a long way to go in her quest for legal status, and the Trump administration is unpredictable and willing to push legal limits to fulfill its goal of deporting millions of people. But Velazquez knows that when you are living day-to-day in the U.S., you take a win when you can. "I feel like I'll be able to obtain permanent residency, and who knows, maybe citizenship, too!" she says, laughing and smiling.

A Turkish PhD student and former Fulbright scholar detained after co-authoring a campus newspaper op-ed about [Gaza](https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza) has been denied bond by an [immigration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/usimmigration) judge, as her legal team continues to urgently petition a federal court in Vermont for her release. Rümeysa Öztürk, who had been studying at Tufts University, was seized by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents on 25 March near her home in [Massachusetts](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/massachusetts) and shuttled through three states before landing in a [Louisiana](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/louisiana) detention facility – all without being charged with any crime. An immigration judge denied bond on Wednesday, ruling Öztürk was both a “flight risk” and a “danger to the community” despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only arguing the flight risk aspect, according to the petition [filed](https://www.aclum.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2025-04-16_petr_submission_re_further_proceedings_99.pdf) by her legal team later that night. According to the documents, the DHS case against Öztürk in immigration court consists solely of a “one-paragraph Department of State memorandum” that revoked her visa, citing her co-authorship of an op-ed that had “found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus”. “They don’t even show anything more than what was published in the op-ed,” said Esha Bhandari, an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing Öztürk in federal court. “It’s fully constitutionally protected speech, no crimes at all … If this is allowed, anyone could be punished for anything they say.” Her federal attorneys are asking a federal judge to order her immediate release – which would supersede the immigration judge’s detention order – or, at minimum, to return her to detention in Vermont by Friday. They have also requested her federal case be expedited to 23 April, or the earliest available date. “It’s simply unconstitutional to keep her in detention for this,” Bhandari said. “We think that the court can decide it on the papers under the governing legal standards, but if it wants to hold a hearing, we’re asking for a hearing later in April. Time is of the essence; Rümeysa’s health is not well in detention.” Wednesday’s court filings from Öztürk’s legal team documented [six asthma attacks](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/tufts-student-ice-asthma-attacks) since her detention began, with officers dismissing one episode as “all in her mind” while medical staff reportedly provided no treatment. Öztürk is among a long list of individuals connected to US universities who have had their visas revoked or been denied entry to the United States after the Trump administration’s aggressive stance in targeting pro-Palestine demonstrations or expressing public support for Palestinians. A [Louisiana](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/louisiana) immigration judge similarly authorized the deportation of the Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, accepting the federal government’s assertion that he represents a national security risk. In late March, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, boasted that the state department had canceled [at least 300 student visas](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/state-department-visas-pro-palestine-protesters) related to pro-Palestinian protests, and that number has [more than doubled](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/how-many-student-visas-revoked) since. When it comes to the visa termination process, Bhandari said that Öztürk, like other similarly targeted individuals, had “no opportunity to protect their rights” before the government changed their legal statuses.

A US-born American citizen who was arrested then detained in county jail at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in [Florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/florida), sparking uproar this week when he was accused of being in the US illegally, has been released. An advocate for Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez had displayed his birth certificate in court initially, and the judge concluded it was authentic, but the 20-year-old was still put behind bars on Wednesday after a state prosector claimed the court did not have jurisdiction over his release because the federal authorities wanted him detained. Lopez-Gomez was released on Thursday evening. His mother, Sebastiana Gomez-Perez, was distraught as she watched her son make a remote appearance at a court hearing on Thursday, according to the Florida Phoenix, which [first reported](https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u-s-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/) his detention. “I wanted to tell them: ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here’. I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there,” she told the outlet in Spanish, then faltered, adding: “It hurts so much. I’m sorry, I can’t.” The incident came amid a series of aggressive anti-immigration actions by the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) [against many](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/18/people-detained-deported-trump-immigration-crackdown) documented people, including US citizens, and also involving challenges to or defiance of court rulings. The challenge to a birth certificate in this case even has echoes of Donald Trump’s fomenting of [a fake argument](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/16/donald-trump-campaign-admits-barack-obama-was-born-in-us) dating back many years that Barack Obama [was not](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/16/trump-obama-birth-certificate-clinton) born in the US, which would have made the former president, who was born in Hawaii, ineligible to run for the White House. On Wednesday, Florida Highway Patrol had arrested Lopez-Gomez, who was born in the neighboring state of Georgia, during a traffic stop of a car in which he was a passenger en route to work. Lopez-Gomez had been crossing into Florida to work on a construction site in Tallahassee, [according to](https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u-s-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/) media reports. Lopez-Gomez was then sent to Leon county jail on a 48-hour hold requested by Ice, and was charged under a new hardline immigration law in [Florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/florida) with being an “unauthorized alien”. The [law](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2025C/4C), SB 4C, which Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed in February, makes it a first-degree misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants over 18-years old to “knowingly” enter Florida after “entering the United States by eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers”. In April, a federal court [issued](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-halts-floridas-cruel-anti-immigrant-law-sb-4-c-in-major-victory-for-immigrant-justice) a temporary restraining order on the state that blocked [the law](https://www.aclufl.org/en/florida-immigrant-coalition-et-al-v-uthmeier-et-al-temporary-restraining-order) from being enforced. The Florida Phoenix [reported](https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u-s-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/) that Leon county judge LaShawn Riggans dismissed the misdemeanor charge and also examined Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate after community advocate Silvia Alba waved the document in court during Lopez-Gomez’s first hearing. “In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” Riggans said. However, she added that despite finding no probable cause for the charge, she did not have “any jurisdiction other than what I’ve already done” to release Lopez-Gomez because of Ice’s request to the local authorities to hold him for 48-hours. Lopez-Gomez was ultimately released on Thursday evening, CNN [reports](https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/us/lopez-gomez-citizen-detained-ice-florida/index.html), citing a family spokesperson. Following his release, Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigration Coalition posted a picture of a visibly emotional Lopez-Gomez alongside supporters. “He is free!! Thank you to everyone who shared, call and did anything to help secure his release,” Kennedy [wrote](https://x.com/tomaskenn/status/1913014608463282180). It was not clear why Lopez-Gomez may have been subjected to an Ice [immigration detainer](https://www.ice.gov/immigration-detainers), a request from Ice that asks federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies to notify it before releasing a “removable alien”, as well as to “hold the alien up to 48 hours … so DHS \[Department of Homeland Security\] has time to assume custody”. [According to](https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/ice_detainers-_advice_and_strategies_for_criminal_defense_counsel.pdf) Immigration Legal Resource Center, “many US citizens have been the mistaken subject of Ice detainers and even prolonged detention and removal, despite their assertion of citizenship … These detainers that lack probable cause are illegal, and Ice must withdraw them or face liability.” The Guardian has reached out to Ice for comment.

 The Supreme Court on Saturday blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th century wartime law. In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center "until further order of this court." Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given "a reasonable time" to contest their pending removals. "We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process," ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email. On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to act. One of the judges said the case raised legitimate concerns but he could not issue an order. The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet facility and sought an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act. In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to President Donald Trump's use of the act. The act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended it gave them power to swiftly remove immigrants they identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status. Following the unanimous high court order on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas promptly issued orders barring removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court. But there had been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene in the far northern end of the state. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. He also balked at issuing a broader order prohibiting removal of all Venezuelans in the area under the act because he said removals hadn't started yet. But the ACLU's Friday filing included sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials, was told to sign papers in English even though the client only spoke Spanish. "ICE informed F.G.M. that these papers were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it," Brown wrote. Gelernt said in a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., that the administration initially moved Venezuelans to its south Texas immigration facility for deportation. But since a judge banned deportations in that area, it has funneled them to the Bluebonnet facility, where no such order exists. He said witnesses reported the men were being loaded on buses Friday evening to be taken to the airport. With Hendrix not agreeing to the ACLU's request for an emergency order, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially halted deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said made him powerless Friday. "I'm sympathetic to everything you're saying," Boasberg told Gelernt. "I just don't think I have the power to do anything about it." Boasberg this week found there's probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying his initial deportation ban. He was concerned that the paper that ICE was giving those held did not make clear they had a right to challenge their removal in court, which he believed the Supreme Court mandated. Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Justice Department, disagreed, saying that people slated for deportation would have a "minimum" of 24 hours to challenge their removal in court. He said no flights were scheduled for Friday night and he was unaware of any Saturday, but the Department of Homeland Security said it reserved the right to remove people then. ICE said it would not comment on the litigation. Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made permanent his temporary ban on the administration deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their home countries unless they are informed of their destination and given a chance to object if they'd face torture or death there. Some Venezuelans subject to Trump's Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison.

The US supreme court has ordered the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan men in immigration custody, after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the justices said early on Saturday. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court’s leading conservatives, dissented. The order is the latest example of how the country’s courts are challenging the Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration system, which has been characterized by a number of deportations that have either been wrongful or carried out without due process. Before the late-night supreme court ruling, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued in an [emergency Friday court filing](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A1007/356063/20250418172902261_2025.04.18%20AARP%20Application.pdf) that dozens of Venezuelan men held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Bluebonnet detention center in Texas had been given notices indicating they were classified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang. They said the men would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) and were told “that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow”. The ACLU said immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to deportation. The ACLU said a number of the men in Texas had already been loaded onto a bus, and it urged the court to rule before they could be deported. The ACLU has already sued to block deportations under the AEA of two Venezuelans held in the Texas detention center and is asking a judge to issue an order barring removal of any immigrants in the region under the law. The supreme court has allowed some deportations under the AEA, but has previously ruled they could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given “a reasonable time” to contest their pending removals. Federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas have also issued orders barring the removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court. But there’s been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles (39km) north of the city of Abilene in the far northern end of the state. District judge James Wesley Hendrix this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because immigration officials filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. But the ACLU’s Friday filing includes sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials and who only spoke Spanish, was told to sign papers in English. “Ice informed FGM that these papers were coming from the president, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it,” Brown wrote. The ACLU asked Hendrix to issue a temporary order halting any such deportations. Later on Friday, with no response from Hendrix, the ACLU asked district judge James Boasberg in Washington to issue a similar emergency order, saying they had information that detainees were being loaded onto buses. In their court filing, lawyers say clients received [a document](https://x.com/camiloreports/status/1913296258619351161) on Friday from immigration officials, titled “Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal Under the Alien Enemies Act”. It read: “You have been determined to be … a member of Tren de Aragua. … “You have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States … This is not a removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Before the supreme court decision, Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, [denounced](https://x.com/RepJayapal/status/1913320953800433935) the reported plan. “We cannot stand by,” Jayapal wrote on social media, as the Trump administration “continues to disappear people”. Hours before the supreme court ruling was announced, an appeals court in Washington DC temporarily halted Boasberg’s contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over its deportation flights to El Salvador last month. The court said the order was intended to provide “sufficient opportunity” for the court to consider the government’s appeal and “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion”.

 President Trump is chipping away at the right to due process within the [immigration court system](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5308051/deportation-timeline-cost), immigration lawyers and former judges say, in an effort to fast-track deportations. Over the course of his first few months in office, the administration has removed some [protections from deportation](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border), cancelled [grants that provided legal representation](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/g-s1-60288/senate-criticism-unaccompanied-children) to children, fired dozens of the [judges responsible for hearing cases](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372681/trump-immigration-judges-fired), and [moved individuals to far-flung locations](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/nx-s1-5286579/donald-trump-migrants-guantanamo-legal-challenges-immigration) — [including to prisons out of U.S](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347427/maryland-el-salvador-error). jurisdiction. The onslaught of explicit policy changes and [messaging](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5323918/self-deportation-immigration-trump) show a rapid effort to make it easier to remove certain migrants from the country. "I hope we get cooperation from the courts, because we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can't have a trial for all of these people," Trump told reporters in the [Oval Office](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6pm6393C4) last week. Experts argue the administration's actions are weakening the limited due process immigrants in the U.S. are entitled to, and could lead to similar erosion for lawful permanent residents and U.S. citizens. "This is a slippery slope towards sending residents of the country … to a place where the U.S. courts have no reach," said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. "That's the heart of the matter." At its core, these due process rights center on a key factor: having access to an impartial judge. Those placed in immigration proceedings in immigration courts within the Department of Justice don't have the right to a lawyer — and [most people don't have one to argue their case](https://tracreports.org/tracker/dynadata/2024_08/IF12158.pdf), which lowers their chances of success. But they may have a right to their day in court. Those courts are already an imperfect system. The success of asylum claims varies widely among each individual immigration judge, according to the [Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse](https://tracreports.org/reports/752/), and people face [various barriers to access legal services](https://tracreports.org/reports/757/). But any sliver of due process is significant because it's an opportunity to prevent erroneous removals, give people a chance to argue why they should stay, or sign off on the government's removal orders. Most recently, the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia raised the specter of due process being ignored, after the Trump administration admitted to sending him to a mega prison in [El Salvador by mistake](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5366017). ### White House questions due process for immigrants Trump and his advisers have taken to social media to cast doubt on the ability to provide due process for the thousands of people they are aiming to arrest and remove. "I'm doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our Country, but the Courts don't seem to want me to do that," Trump [wrote on social media](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114377993807616549). "We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years." Proceedings in administrative court have been known to take months and even years, with courts facing a backlog of [millions](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1344791/dl?inline) of cases. Vice President [JD Vance went as far as to call it a](https://x.com/JDVance/status/1912320489261027374) "fake legal process" that is the "ratification of Biden's illegal migrant invasion." "The judicial process is for Americans. Immediate deportation is for illegal aliens," echoed [deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller](https://x.com/stephenm/status/1911251687647367318?s=42). And the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, [on social media](https://x.com/Heritage/status/1912617453948911625), sought to paint due process as a partisan issue: "When the Left says 'due process,' they mean, 'no deportations.'" To justify due process, legal experts broadly point to the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that no person "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," and the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to states. Democrats and immigration advocates say that if due process is scrapped at any level, it hurts everyone in the system — including U.S. citizens. "What the administration is relying on is that unauthorized immigrants are not popular in the country, and therefore people say, 'They're not entitled to the same due process as U.S. citizens," Chishti said. "That may be politically a good slogan. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not make any distinction between citizens and noncitizens for the application of the protections of due process and judicial review," he said. Still, due process is considered a "spectrum of rights," with different people being allotted different levels of protection, according to multiple lawyers contacted for this article. The fewest rights are offered to more recent arrivals to the U.S. without legal status. Lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens traditionally have the most protections. "It's the position of the Trump administration that they can't do much process at all," said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge now at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of U.S. immigration. "At the end of the day, the question is going to be for the courts whether and what process is due, and how that process should be afforded," he said.  The immigration court system is unique. The judges and courtrooms are within the Department of Justice, under the executive branch as opposed to the judiciary. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, [was created in 1983](https://www.justice.gov/eoir/about-office#:~:text=The%20Executive%20Office%20for%20Immigration%20Review%20(EOIR)%20was%20created%20on,former%20Immigration%20and%20Naturalization%20Service%20() explicitly to pull immigration judges out of what was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "There was a lot of criticism that when the government was bringing charges to try to remove people, that the people who were making those decisions were just too closely intertwined with the enforcement agency," said Ashley Tabaddor, a former immigration judge and former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. People who are subject to removal proceedings have a right to go through the immigration court process. The immigration court system offers a neutral setting for people to make their case, including for protection from prosecution, said Tabaddor, now an immigration law consultant. "What is at stake is oftentimes a life and death situation," she said. ### Court backlogs and less legal aid Previously, nonprofits relied on grants and other federal funds to offer support to those least likely to be able to make their own case in immigration courts, including children. That money is drying up, and pro bono work from big law firms is also at risk after Trump [targeted some law firms](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-59497/trump-law-firms-pro-bono) for work on causes unpopular with him. The South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project has over 700 cases representing children; cuts in their funding means they cannot take on more. "We're in this situation of trying to go through how we can meet our ethical duties as attorneys and represent people, but also not having the ability to pay for those services," said Aimee Korolev, the deputy director. In addition to cutting off grants that facilitate legal aid, the administration has directed the [Justice and Homeland Security departments](https://www.aila.org/library/presidential-memo-on-preventing-abuses-of-the-legal-system-and-the-federal-court) to take disciplinary action against immigration attorneys and law firms accused of committing fraud and "mass illegal immigration." "What we've seen is just this unprecedented attack on immigrants and access to counsel, including attacks on immigration lawyers, the pro bono attorneys, and on immigrants themselves," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center. Her group is one of those that's lost federal funding to provide legal aid to unaccompanied minors. She said the group's recent wins point to the importance of due process. Its clients include U.S. citizens or others with legal status who were questioned or wrongly arrested or detained, as well as lawful permanent residents who have prior convictions, such as [Robert Panton](https://immigrantjustice.org/press-releases/harlem-grandfather-community-leader-robert-panton-detained-ice-check-new-york-city), 59, who is facing removal proceedings for a single nonviolent drug offense. The Department of Homeland Security says it abides by the Constitution but that it has the right to revoke visas. "We have said time and time again that if you are in this country on a visa or green card and have committed a crime then you may be subject to visa revocation," Tricia McLaughlin, the department's assistant secretary for public affairs, said in an email to NPR. "We are absolutely following due process under the US Constitution." However, the department disputed that U.S. citizens were getting arrested. "DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted and are not resulting in the arrest of U.S. citizens. We do our due diligence," a senior DHS official said. "If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement are trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability." Issues with U.S. citizens getting accidentally swept up in immigration arrests stretch back several administrations. A [2021](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-487) Government Accountability Office report found that in the five years prior, potential citizens did have encounters with immigration officers that could lead to their arrest and even deportation. ### Bypassing the process Immigration lawyers say the administration is also trying to skip the often lengthy immigration court process as much as possible. The Trump administration has sought to boost deportations of those eligible for ["expedited removal](https://azmirror.com/2025/01/25/no-court-no-hearing-trump-revives-fast-track-deportations-expands-reach-nationwide/)," which allows the government to immediately remove someone without a court hearing. Trump also invoked the [Alien Enemies Act of 1798](https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/1239050330/podcast-alien-enemies-act), which also allows the administration to speed up deportations of certain gang members with more limited due process. Several lawsuits are [challenging](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/19/nx-s1-5369554/trump-administration-and-the-courts-continue-to-clash-over-immigration) the president's proclamation, and the Supreme Court [temporarily blocked deportations](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5369579/supreme-court-block-deportations-venezuelans) under the act.  Using a combination of laws allowing for quick removal, the administration sent more than 200 men to a mega prison in El Salvador. In court filings, attorneys for some of the men allege they scrambled to find clients who had [been removed](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/44/6/jgg-v-trump/) while in the [midst of their immigration court processes](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/44/8/jgg-v-trump/). Trump has also moved to lay off and encourage the resignations of hundreds of court staff, including the judges who are supposed to approve deportations. This included judges who sit on the Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals from immigration judges. "We are already hearing that cases are piling up in the queue because there aren't enough board members to review those appeal cases," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Those cases include recent arrests and detentions of people on student visas or without criminal records. "The dramatic changes that the administration has made in just less than three months now are overwhelming the overall legal system structure, be it private attorneys or nonprofits," Chen said. "There's just an overwhelming amount, like a fire hydrant of demand for assistance." ### Encouragement to self-deport And there's some evidence the Department of Homeland Security is more actively trying to encourage people to skip going to court. Across different court waiting rooms in Texas and Chicago, the Homeland Security Department has put up signs that read: "Message to illegal aliens: a warning to self-deport." Photos of signs were shared with NPR on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from the government against attorneys or their clients. In Spanish and English, the signs warn of consequences if people do not "self-deport," including the risk of hefty fines. DHS, in a statement to NPR, didn't deny putting these signs up in immigration court waiting rooms. "President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message to illegal aliens: leave now," McLaughlin said in response to questions about the signs. She said people should [use the CBP Home App](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/g-s1-58984/cbp-one-app-migrants-dhs-border) to self-deport and show they're following the law. Tabaddor, the former immigration judge, said leaving people without legal counsel, or chipping away at the process, means more mistakes are possible. "At our fundamental level, we have to recognize that errors are made. We're all human," Tabaddor said, reflecting on her 30 years in federal immigration work. "You have to have a system in place for those people to be given notice and an opportunity to respond. Otherwise, it's absolute lawlessness."