Deaths During ICE Operations Expose the Dangers of Mass Deportation

Washington DC, July 15 – In response to reports of a third death taking place in connection to an ICE enforcement operation in just over a week, American Immigration Council policy director Nayna Gupta issued the following statement: 

“This cannot be dismissed as a series of unrelated tragedies. This is what happens when Congress dumps billions of dollars into mass deportations instead of focusing on what’s actually broken in our immigration system.   

“The fact that ICE reportedly suspended most vehicle stops tells us that some officials recognize the current enforcement tactics are putting people in danger. But temporarily pausing one tactic is not enough. Congress has poured close to a quarter of a trillion dollars into immigration enforcement. ICE and other agencies are funded at the level of some militaries, without any of the accountability or oversight that should come with that power.  

“This is not sustainable. The impacted families and American public deserve answers about the details of these tragic killings, but this is bigger than any one incident or investigation. Congress needs to make overdue, bold changes to our immigration laws to restore credibility and humanity to immigration enforcement in American communities.   

“There is a better way forward. A working immigration system should be guided by four basic principles: first, giving longtime immigrant residents a chance to get right with the law; second, clear and targeted public safety priorities; third, more proportionate consequences for violations of the law rather than deportation for all; and finally greater accountability to rein in abuse by federal agents. Right now, the sole focus is on chasing deportation and detention quotas and that makes violence and tragic deaths inevitable. Mass deportation creates danger, not safety.”  

The American Immigration Council works to create a more welcoming and fair immigration system. Through litigation, research, and programs that expand access to legal assistance, the Council helps ensure immigrants are embraced, communities are enriched, and justice prevails for all. Follow us on BlueSky @immcouncil.org and Instagram @immcouncil.  

The post Deaths During ICE Operations Expose the Dangers of Mass Deportation  appeared first on American Immigration Council.

from American Immigration Council https://ift.tt/rYPNLHG
via Dear ImmigrantDear Immigrant

The Work Authorization Gap: What Happens Between Spousal Arrival and Legal Employment Eligibility

The period between an immigrant spouse's arrival and the point at which they can legally work is not a bureaucratic footnote. It is a designed interval — one that shapes the financial, psychological, and logistical reality of an entire household, often for months.

This is what that gap actually looks like, what it costs, and what it reveals about who immigration administration is built to serve.

When a spouse arrives on a spousal visa, the clock does not start on employment. It starts on paperwork. The work authorization application cannot be filed until after arrival. Processing takes months. During that window, the arriving spouse cannot earn income — legally — regardless of their qualifications, their prior career, or the household's financial need. The citizen or permanent resident spouse carries the full economic weight. Savings draw down. Stress accumulates. The household operates at a structural deficit that the system created and the system does not compensate for.

The administrative requirements during this period are not light. There are forms, fees, biometric appointments, medical examinations, evidence packages. Each step requires money the household is now managing on one income. Each step requires time — time spent gathering documents, waiting for appointments, following up on requests. The arriving spouse, who cannot work, often becomes the de facto project manager of their own immigration case, which is its own form of labor the system does not count.

What confirms this pattern is not one household's experience. It is the structure of the process itself. The gap is not an accident of backlog or a temporary processing delay. It is the sequence the system requires. Arrival first. Application after arrival. Authorization after application review. Employment after authorization. That chain is the policy. The waiting is built in.

The mechanism is straightforward: employment authorization is treated as a separate determination from admission. Being admitted as a spouse does not mean being admitted as a worker. Those are two different statuses, two different applications, two different timelines. The logic, from an administrative standpoint, is about maintaining distinct categories of permission. From a household standpoint, the logic produces a period of legally enforced financial dependency with no accommodation, no bridge benefit, and no expedited pathway based on economic hardship.

Who bears the cost is not ambiguous. The arriving spouse bears the psychological cost of enforced idleness in a new country where they have no established network, no income, and no professional identity yet. The sponsoring spouse bears the financial cost of sole-income household support during one of the most expensive and logistically demanding periods of their shared life. Neither the agency processing the application nor the government that designed the sequence bears any cost at all. The fee revenue flows in one direction. The waiting flows in the other.

The incentive structure is worth naming plainly. There is no institutional penalty for slow processing. There is no refund if authorization takes longer than estimated. There is no mechanism by which the household's financial deterioration creates pressure on the system to move faster. The household absorbs the cost of delay. The agency does not. That asymmetry is not incidental — it is how the system is calibrated.

The doctrine point here is transferable. When an institution separates eligibility from admission and places the cost of that gap entirely on the applicant, it is not failing to serve the applicant. It is succeeding at serving a different priority — control of status categories, revenue from fees, administrative convenience. Understanding what an institution is actually optimized for requires looking at who absorbs friction and who does not. In this case, the answer is consistent and structural.

The work authorization gap is a small episode in a large system. But small episodes, examined carefully, show you the system's actual values. This one shows that immigrant households are expected to fund and absorb the cost of a categorization process that was not designed around their continuity. That is not a complaint. It is a description. And descriptions, held clearly, are where doctrine begins.

Federal Court Delivers Major Blow to Trump Detention Policy of Jailing Immigrants With No Hearing, No Explanation

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 2026 — On July 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that people facing immigration detention have the right to meaningful due process protections and must be afforded a bond hearing within 90 days. The decision deals a major blow to the Trump administration’s new mass detention efforts, rejecting the government’s argument that it can detain people without ever having to justify it to a judge. 

At the center of the case are three fathers of U.S. citizen children—all longtime Texas residents with no criminal history—who were arrested following routine traffic stops and detained without any meaningful opportunity to challenge whether that detention was necessary. The American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Project argued before the Fifth Circuit on behalf of these three men, whose cases were consolidated for appeal.

“This case asked a simple question: if the government wants to lock someone up, does it have to show that imprisonment serves a purpose?” said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council, who argued the case. “Today’s decision reaffirms that constitutional rights do not disappear simply because someone is in immigration proceedings. The government must provide a meaningful opportunity for people to challenge their detention.” 

In its decision, the court held that the Constitution does not allow the government to detain noncitizens for “indefinite and extensive periods of time without an individualized determination.” Noncitizens detained under the government’s recently expanded mandatory detention policy are entitled to a bond hearing within 90 days of their arrest, and at that hearing, the government must provide an individualized justification for continued detention. It cannot simply hold someone because of how they entered the country, no matter what the immigration detention statute says. 

“The Fifth Amendment has protected people living in this country from being imprisoned without justification for well over a century. What it doesn’t do is enforce itself,” said Ellie Norton, Senior Staff Attorney, of the National Immigration Project. “Ignacio, Alejandro, and Miguel are fathers who have lived in Texas for more than a decade. They’re the reason this court had to confront the question of whether the government can detain people like them without any checks and balances. Thousands of people in detention will benefit from what these three men were willing to fight for.” 

The decision will provide crucial due process protections for people held in immigration detention throughout Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, states that collectively hold some of the largest immigration detention populations in the country. The court’s ruling has enormous implications for the thousands of noncitizens the government has detained in these states without any due process. It requires the administration to justify their incarceration and the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars on detention of people who have built their lives in and contributed to this country. 

Immigration detention has expanded dramatically under the second Trump administration, while reports of overcrowding, inadequate medical care, and a record number of deaths in custody have continued to mount. Without the chance to go before a judge, people who pose no danger and no flight risk can remain incarcerated for prolonged periods while their immigration cases proceed. The Fifth Circuit’s decision puts an end to this injustice.

Additional context on the ruling:

For any noncitizen held under 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) and thus subject to mandatory detention under the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi, 166 F.4th 494, 506 (5th Cir. 2026), “the Government must show” that the individual presents an “identified and articulable threat” or flight risk. Relying on Supreme Court precedent, the court held that individuals detained under this statute must be provided bond hearings within 90 days of their detention, where the government must articulate an “individualized justification” for continued detention. The court made clear that its ruling does not require every single noncitizen subject to mandatory detention in the Fifth Circuit to file an individual habeas petition to get this relief.

Read the ruling here.

More about the lawsuit here.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Elyssa Pachico, epachico@immcouncil.org 

Lilly Gonzalez, media@nipnlg.org 

###

The National Immigration Project is a membership organization of attorneys, advocates, and community members who believe that all people should be treated with dignity, live freely, and flourish. We litigate, advocate, educate, and build bridges across movements to ensure that those most impacted by the immigration and criminal systems are uplifted and supported. Learn more at nipnlg.org. Follow the National Immigration Project on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads at @NIPNLG.

The American Immigration Council works to create a more welcoming and fair immigration system. Through litigation, research, and programs that expand access to legal assistance, the Council helps ensure immigrants are embraced, communities are enriched, and justice prevails for all. Follow us on BlueSky @immcouncil.org and Instagram @immcouncil.   

The post Federal Court Delivers Major Blow to Trump Detention Policy of Jailing Immigrants With No Hearing, No Explanation  appeared first on American Immigration Council.

from American Immigration Council https://ift.tt/NfUDPGV
via Dear ImmigrantDear Immigrant

Dear Immigrant: The Job Is Not the Life

Letter 07

Re: The Job Is Not the Life

Dear Immigrant,

In the first years, it is easy to confuse the job with the life. The job is what you came for, in the practical sense — the income, the visa status, the structure of the day. It fills the hours and it provides the identity marker that the new country understands: what do you do. You are what you do, in the way the new country reads people, and having a job is the evidence that you exist in a legible form.

But the job is not the life. The life is everything the job does not cover: the relationships, the community, the things you do because they give you something that money does not measure, the interior growth that happens outside of working hours.

Immigrants who reduce their lives to the job are, in my observation, the immigrants who are most likely to arrive at year five or year ten having built financial stability and nothing else. They have the salary and the apartment and the credit score. They do not have the community or the depth or the sense that the life they are living belongs fully to them. The job was the means. The life was supposed to be the end. Somewhere in the accumulation of working hours, the means became the end and the end was forgotten.

Protect time for the things that are not the job. This is harder than it sounds when you are working long hours and recovering from long hours and calling home and managing paperwork and trying to survive financially. There is not much time left. Use what there is for something that feeds you.

The job provides the platform. The life is what you build on it. Do not confuse the platform for the building.

From someone who eventually remembered to build,
A former immigrant

dearimmigrant.com

Court Declares Unlawful the Department of Education’s Rule Restricting Public Service Loan Forgiveness Eligibility

Washington, D.C. — The Trump Administration’s attempt to politicize the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is unlawful, a federal judge ruled today. 

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia struck down a rule issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that threatened to disqualify certain employers from eligibility for PSLF. 

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed in November 2025 by Public Citizen Litigation Group and Student Defense on behalf of the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, the American Immigration Council, The Door – A Center of Alternatives, Inc., and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

The lawsuit challenged a rule finalized in October 2025 that allowed ED to disqualify an employer from the PSLF program if the Secretary of Education determined that the organization had a “substantial illegal purpose.” Under the rule, ED gave itself the unilateral power to decide whether an organization had such a purpose, based on the organization’s participation in activities that the current administration disapproves of concerning immigration, discrimination, gender-affirming care, and other matters.

As the plaintiffs explained in the motion granted today, the rule violated the state governing the PSLF program and allowed arbitrary enforcement against mission-driven organizations doing work or expressing opinions that the government opposes. The organizations asked the court to declare the new rule unlawful because, among other things, ED lacks the legal authority to change the statutory criteria for PSLF.

“The court’s ruling is a major victory for those who work in the public interest and the communities they serve. People who devote their careers to public service and non-profit work deserve access to loan forgiveness on the terms Congress promised, without the threat of retribution from the Trump administration.” said Cormac Early, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel on the case.

“Today’s decision is a victory for student loan borrowers, for the First Amendment, and for the rule of law,” said Aaron Ament, President of Student Defense. “Public servants should not have to worry that the federal government will punish them because of their employer’s mission or perceived political views. We’re relieved that the court ruled our government must follow through on its promise of loan forgiveness for the millions of teachers, military personnel and other public servants who have dedicated their lives to making our country a better place, regardless of ED’s opinions.”

“The Trump administration’s baseless and blatant attempt to revoke Congressionally appointed benefits wasn’t just a threat to our nonprofit employees,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of the Kennedy Human Rights Center. “It was a threat to everyone we serve, to the women, men, and children who rely on our organization to protect their most fundamental human rights. Today’s decision is an important victory, and an affirmation of what Congress decided almost twenty years ago – public servants should be supported.”

“Today’s decision protects public servants from a rule that would have punished them for simply working to support immigrant families and other underserved communities targeted by this administration. Public Service Loan Forgiveness was created to encourage people to work to help underserved communities and populations. This ruling affirms that the government cannot rewrite the terms of that promise for political reasons,” said Jorge Loweree, Managing Director of Programs and Strategy at the American Immigration Council. 

“Today’s decision is a victory for public service professionals and the communities they serve. Public Service Loan Forgiveness was created to encourage educators, counselors, social workers, attorneys, and other professionals to dedicate their careers to serving others and strengthening their communities. For organizations like The Door, that means being able to attract and retain the talented staff who help young people access opportunity, overcome challenges, and build stable futures. We are grateful that the court upheld that commitment,” said Kelsey Louie, CEO of The Door – A Center of Alternatives, Inc. 

“This ruling is a victory for every public servant who chose to dedicate their career to lifting up their community, and for the Latino families those public servants serve. The Department of Education does not get to rewrite the promise Congress made, and it certainly does not get to punish organizations like ours for the advocacy and civil rights work that is at the heart of our mission,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the LULAC Institute. 

Read the ruling here.

Read the original complaint here.

###

About Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center:

The Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that works across the courtroom, the boardroom, and the classroom to build a more just and peaceful world. Inspired by the legacies of Senator Robert and Ethel Kennedy, we work with international and domestic partners to protect fundamental human rights. We pursue strategic litigation to hold governments accountable at home and around the world; foster a social good approach to business; and train the next generation of changemakers through our human rights education programs.

About the American Immigration Council:

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration. The Council employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. Follow the latest Council news and information on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram and YouTube. 

About The Door – A Center of Alternatives, Inc. 

For over 50 years, The Door has been a trusted place for young people between 12 and 24. All are welcome as they are, to be themselves, address challenges, and access services when and how they need them. With roots in the heart of New York City and a presence across the boroughs, The Door offers comprehensive programs and services, including mental health counseling, health and nutrition assistance, legal services, housing support, arts, education, and career guidance. At The Door, everything is free and everyone is welcome. 

The Door’s on-site charter high school, Broome Street Academy, serves 300 students per year from across all five boroughs, with reserved seats for students who are transitionally housed or in foster care.

About The LULAC Institute

The LULAC Institute is the nonprofit arm of The League of United Latin American Citizens Institute (LULAC), the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization. Founded in 1929, LULAC is committed to advancing the rights and opportunities of Latino Americans through advocacy, community building, and education. With a growing network of councils nationwide, LULAC remains steadfast in its mission to protect and empower millions of Latinos, contributing daily to America’s prosperity. For more information about LULAC and its initiatives, please visit www.LULAC.org.

About Public Citizen Litigation Group

Public Citizen Litigation Group is the litigating arm of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. For more than 50 years, the Litigation Group has worked to advance the interests of consumers, workers, and the public, and to hold the government and corporations accountable to the people. Read more at https://ift.tt/FNOLC9Y. 

About Student Defense

The National Student Legal Defense Network (“Student Defense”) is a non-profit organization that works, through litigation and advocacy, to advance students’​ rights to educational opportunity and to ensure that higher education provides a launching point for economic mobility.

The post Court Declares Unlawful the Department of Education’s Rule Restricting Public Service Loan Forgiveness Eligibility appeared first on American Immigration Council.

from American Immigration Council https://ift.tt/x4EwAlO
via Dear ImmigrantDear Immigrant