Tag
Broad incidents affecting immigration policy, the immigration system, and immigrant communities. Covers systemic changes to immigration law and enforcement that implicate human rights obligations.
18 incidents
A sweeping expansion of travel restrictions targeting predominantly Muslim-majority and African nations, growing from the original first-term ban to cover 39 countries. The bans affect millions of people and have been widely characterized as religious and racial discrimination codified into immigration policy.
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.
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.
The CBP Border Patrol stations along the southern border were designed for 72-hour holding. Under the Trump administration's enforcement surge, they held children for days and weeks, sometimes in chainlink-fenced areas — the 'cages' — without adequate food, water, sleep, or sanitation. At least seven children died in custody in fiscal years 2018-2019, compared to zero in the previous decade. The DHS OIG described conditions presenting 'immediate risk' to detainee health and safety.
A federal judge in the ACLU's Ms. L. v. ICE case ordered the government to reunify all separated families within 30 days. The administration missed the deadline, admitted it lacked a tracking system, and was repeatedly held in contempt. 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.
Trump's use of 'animals' to describe MS-13 members — and his conflation of the gang label with immigrants broadly — followed the same pattern documented in incitement to ethnic violence: dehumanization of a group, followed by calls for harsh treatment. Scholars of political violence noted the specific language echoed anti-Tutsi propaganda before the Rwandan genocide and Nazi propaganda before the Holocaust. Trump used similar dehumanizing framing for other immigrant groups, describing Central American migrants as an 'infestation' and an 'invasion.'
Attorney General Sessions announced a zero tolerance policy in April 2018 requiring criminal prosecution of all illegal border crossers. Because federal criminal custody excludes children, this automatically separated minors from their parents. Over 5,500 children were separated in six weeks. Courts ordered reunification; as of 2024, hundreds of families remain separated.
Zero tolerance created systematic family separation as deliberate policy — not incidentally but intentionally, with separation designed as a deterrent. The administration did not build a system to track which children belonged to which parents. A federal judge ordered reunification within 30 days; the government said it could not comply. By October 2020, the ACLU reported that 628 children had parents who still could not be found — many of whom had been deported to Central America without their children, without being told where their children were.
The zero tolerance policy was the direct cause of mass family separations: parents were referred for criminal prosecution, children were taken to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters, and the two systems — criminal justice and child welfare — did not have adequate mechanisms to track and reunite families. Senior administration officials including Chief of Staff John Kelly had discussed using family separation as a deterrent as early as 2017. Trump publicly and repeatedly denied a family separation policy existed while it was operating. A federal court ordered family reunification; the government struggled to comply, partly because adequate records had not been kept linking children to parents.
The meeting was called to discuss a bipartisan immigration framework. Present were Senators Durbin (D-IL), Graham (R-SC), Flake (R-AZ), Perdue (R-GA), Cotton (R-AR), and others, along with DHS Secretary Nielsen. Multiple attendees confirmed the substance of the comments. The 'shithole' characterization was directed at Haiti and African nations; Trump contrasted them with Norway, where he had met with the prime minister the previous day. Nielsen testified to Congress that she did not recall the exact words used. Perdue and Cotton initially said they didn't recall the comments then claimed Trump hadn't used those specific words — a position contradicted by Durbin's direct confirmation and Graham's reported in-room response.
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.
DACA recipients — called 'Dreamers' — are people who arrived in the United States as children, grew up here, attended American schools, and in many cases speak no other language. The rescission announcement gave recipients a six-month wind-down period and urged Congress to pass legislation. Congress failed to act; the Supreme Court blocked the rescission in June 2020, ruling the administration's process was procedurally defective. DACA remained in legal limbo through the remainder of the first term.
The travel ban evolved through three executive orders as earlier versions were blocked by courts for discriminatory purpose and due process violations. The third version added non-Muslim-majority countries to provide legal cover, and was upheld by the Supreme Court 5-4 in June 2018. The Court's majority expressly declined to consider Trump's public statements calling for a Muslim ban; Sotomayor's dissent quoted those statements at length and compared the ruling to Korematsu v. United States.
Trump signed an initial travel ban on January 27, 2017, halting entry from seven Muslim-majority countries and suspending the refugee program. After courts blocked it, the administration issued revised versions that scaled back explicit language while preserving the core country-specific restrictions. The Supreme Court allowed a third version to take full effect in December 2017.
The executive order was signed without coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Defense, or the intelligence community. Customs and Border Protection received no guidance before implementation. Within hours, hundreds of travelers from the seven countries — including green card holders, refugees, and visa holders — were detained at airports or turned away from flights. Federal judges in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington state issued emergency stays within 24-48 hours. The order was eventually replaced by revised versions that were also challenged legally; the Supreme Court upheld the third version in Trump v. Hawaii (2018).
The travel ban's anti-Muslim intent was documented in Trump's own public statements: before the first order, Trump had called for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States'; Rudy Giuliani publicly stated Trump had asked him how to create 'a Muslim ban' legally. The first order's implementation — without agency coordination, applying immediately to green card holders, causing chaos and hundreds of detentions at airports — forced a broad injunction within hours. Courts repeatedly found discriminatory intent. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the third version, with Chief Justice Roberts's majority explicitly declining to assess whether the stated national security justification was pretextual.
Under Trump, ICE detention grew from approximately 41,000 to over 55,000 people at peak. At least 41 people died in ICE custody during the first term; a DHS OIG inspection found facilities with standing sewage, rotten food, and detainees unable to access medical care. Multiple investigations documented sexual abuse, inadequate mental health care, and coerced medical procedures.
Trump hired contractor William Kaszycki who used approximately 200 undocumented Polish workers to demolish the Bonwit Teller building for below-minimum wages — approximately $4-5 per hour, no overtime. Workers say they were not provided safety equipment for handling asbestos-laden material. When they complained about nonpayment, a foreman told them to 'get back to work or they'll be reported to immigration.' Trump settled a class action suit in 1998.