Tag

#deportation

Forced removal of individuals from a country, often in violation of due process, non-refoulement, or family unity protections. Covers mass deportations, expedited removals without judicial review, and transfers to third countries.

12 incidents

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

Trump Signs $70 Billion Secure America Act, ICE Arrests Surge to 10,000 in Five Days Amid Reported Quota

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

Secretive $7.5 Million Deal Sends 66 Deportees to Equatorial Guinea, Then On to the Countries They Fled

A secret agreement with one of the world's most repressive regimes has sent 66 deportees to Equatorial Guinea, where they were detained and, in the case of all 29 on the first two flights, returned to their countries of origin, including people US judges had found would face persecution or torture there. The $7.5 million deal is part of a broader $40 million third-country deportation program targeting migrants from countries that will not accept their return.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Immigration Rocket Dockets: Mass Fast-Tracked Hearings and In Absentia Removal Orders

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, as the 2018–19 family rocket dockets showed, when 80% of completed cases ended in in absentia removal orders.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Midnight Deportation of 76 Guatemalan Children: Labor Day Weekend Mass Removal Attempt

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 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Systematic Attacks on Press Freedom: Journalist Arrests, Detention, and Deportation

A systematic pattern of press freedom violations including the arrest of journalists covering immigration enforcement, and the deportation of a journalist to the country he fled due to death threats. Abroad, journalists covering US deportation operations have been detained by foreign authorities.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Forced Disappearances of Salvadoran Deportees in El Salvador's Prison System

Systematic forced disappearances of Salvadoran nationals deported from the US, held incommunicado in Salvadoran prisons including CECOT with no access to lawyers, families, or courts. The US is accused of breaching non-refoulement by deporting people to a system that human rights groups document as practising enforced disappearance. Amnesty International has said El Salvador's state-of-exception abuses could amount to crimes against humanity.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Deportation Proceedings Against Mahmoud Khalil for Pro-Palestine Protest Activity

A Columbia graduate student with a green card was arrested by ICE for his role in Gaza solidarity protests and ordered deported on the novel grounds that his speech posed 'adverse foreign policy consequences,' establishing a dangerous precedent for using immigration enforcement to suppress political dissent.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Deportations to Haiti Despite Gang Control and Humanitarian Collapse

The US deported Haitians to a country whose capital's airport US airlines are barred from after commercial planes were hit by gang gunfire, where 90% of the capital is under gang control and 1.4 million are displaced. DHS terminated TPS for about 348,000 Haitians while the State Department maintained a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' advisory; the Supreme Court allowed the termination to proceed in June 2026.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Rescission of ICE Sensitive Locations Policy — Churches, Schools, and Hospitals Open to Raids

The rescission of the sensitive locations policy removed decades-old protections for churches, schools, hospitals, and shelters (courthouse arrests were governed by a separate ICE directive, also loosened in January 2025) from immigration enforcement. The rescission coincided with a broader 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

Second-Term Mass Deportations: Largest Enforcement Operation in U.S. History

The administration declared a national emergency at the border on January 20, 2025, and directed federal military and law enforcement resources toward immigration enforcement. ICE operations expanded significantly; worksite raids and community arrests became routine. The administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national with a U.S. court order protecting him from removal to El Salvador, to CECOT on March 15, 2025; a federal judge ordered the government to facilitate his return, and the Supreme Court upheld that requirement; the administration resisted for weeks before returning him on June 6, 2025 to face criminal charges in Tennessee. The ACLU and other organizations documented multiple U.S. citizens and green card holders wrongly detained. Trump characterized the deportation operations as removing 'the worst, most violent criminals' despite documented cases of individuals with no criminal history being targeted.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Family Separation Continuation: Violating Federal Court Orders to Reunify Families

A federal judge in the ACLU's Ms. L. v. ICE case ordered the government to reunify separated children under five within 14 days and all others within 30 days. The administration missed the deadlines and admitted it lacked a tracking system. Parents were deported without their children; children were 'lost' in the system; in some cases children remained in U.S. custody for years after their parents had been removed to their home countries. The ACLU's family tracking project located hundreds of deported parents who didn't know where their children were.

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

DACA Rescission: Ending Protection for 800,000 Childhood Arrivals

DACA recipients — sometimes called Dreamers — had arrived in the United States as children, had lived here for years or decades, had submitted to background checks, and had registered with the government in reliance on the Obama administration's promise of temporary protection. Sessions announced the rescission by describing immigrants in terms that critics said echoed nativist rhetoric. The administration's stated legal basis was that DACA was an unconstitutional executive overreach; the Supreme Court did not reach this question, instead finding the rescission procedurally defective — the DHS Secretary had failed to adequately explain the agency's reasoning as required by the APA.