Category
Mass deportations, wrongful removals, asylum denial, and immigration abuses
25 incidents
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.