Category
Mass deportations, wrongful removals, asylum denial, and immigration abuses
29 incidents
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
ICE held children at its Dilley family detention center for months, far beyond the Flores settlement's 20-day standard, with an estimated 1,560 minors held past the limit in six months. A federal judge appointed an independent monitor and special master over ICE and CBP child custody. DHS responded that 'being in detention is a choice.'
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
A Trump-appointed federal judge twice held DHS in contempt in 2026 for deporting young asylum seekers protected by a court settlement: at least 107 removals found in July, then the second deportation to El Salvador of the same 19-year-old in September, after he had already been returned once. DHS blamed 'communication errors.'
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A US deportation flight landed 146 people in Venezuela on the morning of June 24; that evening, the hotel housing them collapsed in a pair of major earthquakes. Only 32 survivors have been confirmed as of June 30. The US government controlled the timing and destination of the removal that placed these people in the building when it collapsed — an unprecedented question of duty of care in forced-transfer operations, though not a settled area of law.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Trump signed a $70 billion ICE/CBP funding bill on June 10, 2026. Within weeks, ICE arrests surged past 10,000 in five days -- nearly double the prior pace -- after leadership ordered nearly all officers onto arrest duty and reportedly imposed a 3,000-arrests-per-day quota, which government lawyers deny is official policy. Two senior officials were reassigned for insufficient arrest numbers.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The administration moved toward a second phase of mass deportation operations, shifting from criminal-focused enforcement to broad workplace raids, backed by a $170 billion budget, an expanding warehouse detention infrastructure, and a stated goal of removing one million people in 2026.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
An accelerated immigration court system that fast-tracks cases through mass remote hearings, with two-thirds of all Somali cases nationwide rescheduled on short notice. The process systematically deprives respondents of due process, with 80% of completed rocket docket cases historically resulting in in absentia removal orders.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The administration attempted a mass deportation of unaccompanied minor children in the middle of the night during a holiday weekend, circumventing legal protections that require children to appear before an immigration judge. A federal judge halted the operation after being awakened at 2:35 AM, but one plane had already taken off before turning around.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
An ICE directive and BIA precedential decision eliminated bond hearings for millions of immigrants, creating a system of indefinite detention without judicial review. 71.7% of the 57,861 ICE detainees had no criminal convictions.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The US paid Rwanda, Ghana, Eswatini, and South Sudan to accept deportees who are not their nationals, in deals a federal judge ruled unconstitutional. HRW called the expulsion agreements violations of international human rights law, and domestic lawsuits in Ghana challenge the deal's legality.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
ICE conducted at least 40 workplace raids with over 1,100 arrests in seven months, including the largest single-site raid in DHS history at a Hyundai plant in Georgia (475 arrests). The raids triggered diplomatic incidents and devastated communities dependent on immigrant labor.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The administration deported US military veterans including Purple Heart recipients wounded in combat, after replacing Biden-era protections that required ICE to consider military service. An estimated 94,000 non-citizen veterans face potential deportation.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
DHS terminated humanitarian parole for 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, stripping legal status effective April 24, 2025. The Supreme Court allowed the mass revocation in a 7-2 ruling, and DHS urged affected individuals to 'self-deport immediately.'
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
Federal officials removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a preexisting withholding order barring that destination, then spent weeks litigating what it meant to 'facilitate' his return after the Supreme Court intervened.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The administration invoked a rarely used 1798 wartime statute to justify accelerated removals of Venezuelan nationals, including transfers into El Salvador's detention system, prompting immediate litigation over both process and statutory scope.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
Multiple US citizens and legally protected individuals have been wrongfully deported, often in direct defiance of federal court orders. The pattern includes deportation of a man with explicit judicial protection, another removed the day after a court barred his removal, and a US citizenship claimant deported despite a restraining order.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
ICE turned mandatory immigration court hearings into arrest traps, coordinating in real time with government attorneys to arrest immigrants whose cases were dismissed. Record-setting asylum denials, in absentia orders tripling to 50,000, and 'rocket dockets' processing cases too fast for legal representation destroyed systematic access to due process.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The US deported Haitians to a country the FAA banned US airlines from landing in due to gang gunfire, where 90% of the capital is under gang control and 1.4 million are displaced. DHS terminated TPS for 348,000 Haitians while the State Department maintained a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' advisory.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
TPS was terminated or targeted for termination across 11 countries, de-documenting over 1 million people. Federal courts have blocked or paused several terminations. The State Department maintains 'Do Not Travel' advisories for many of the same countries DHS claims are safe for return.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
DHS Secretary Noem terminated Venezuela TPS, and the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect, de-documenting approximately 350,000 people and exposing them to removal to a country the State Department itself has characterized as unstable and dangerous.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
10,500+ people subjected to solitary confinement in immigration detention over 14 months, with usage surging under the Trump administration. Nearly 75% of placements exceeded the UN's 15-day torture threshold. DHS oversight offices were simultaneously decimated from 150 to 22 staff.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The administration reinstated 'Remain in Mexico,' forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexican cities that the US State Department itself rates as 'Level 4: Do Not Travel' due to kidnapping and violence. MSF documented kidnapping rates as high as 75% among those returned under the policy.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The administration imposed an unprecedented total ban on asylum claims at the southern border, shutting down the CBP One app and eliminating all avenues for protection. A federal judge ruled the president 'cannot adopt an alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.'
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The immediate shutdown of the CBP One asylum scheduling app on Inauguration Day cancelled 30,000 appointments and stranded 270,000 asylum seekers, eliminating the primary legal pathway to request protection at the US border.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
Immigration enforcement separated at least 11,000 US citizen children from their parents, with children held in government custody for an average of six months while officials used reunification processes as traps to arrest parents and caregivers.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
ICE Air conducted 2,253 deportation flights to 79 countries in one year -- a 46% increase over the Biden era -- including to 25 countries that had never received ICE flights. Domestic transfer flights surged 132%. Airlines increasingly concealed flight details from public tracking.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The rescission of the sensitive locations policy removed decades-old protections for churches, schools, hospitals, courthouses, and shelters from immigration enforcement. The change unleashed a dramatic surge in arrests of non-criminal immigrants and chilled access to essential services including healthcare and education.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
ICE deported 363 pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in 13 months and recorded 16 miscarriages in detention. Women were shackled while miscarrying, denied prenatal care, and subjected to invasive procedures without consent -- all in violation of ICE's own 2021 directive against detaining pregnant individuals.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The administration indefinitely suspended refugee resettlement and set the lowest admissions cap in US history at 7,500, prioritizing white Afrikaners, while stranding refugees mid-transit including families who had sold their belongings for the journey.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The DHS Inspector General's July 2019 report documented conditions at Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas: some detainees held for over a month in single-occupancy holding rooms, standing room only conditions, limited access to showers and clean clothing, insufficient food, and inadequate medical care. The Clint facility conditions, documented by attorneys visiting to conduct interviews, included children sleeping on floors, a 2-year-old with dirty clothes, limited access to soap and toothbrushes, and sick children not separated from healthy ones. The administration's response was that the facilities were overwhelmed by a surge in arrivals and that Congress needed to provide additional funding.