Federal Court Blocks ICE’s Unlawful Detention of Immigrant Teens Turning 18

Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2025 — On December 12, a federal court in D.C. ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to follow a long-standing court order that protects immigrant teens from being placed in adult detention centers. The court’s order blocks a new ICE policy to automatically shuttle unaccompanied children into adult detention once they turn 18.  

Read the court order here and the opinion here.

The order specifically covers children who originally entered the United States as unaccompanied minors and who “age out” of the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) (the federal program that looks after unaccompanied children by placing them in shelters and then later with family and/or guardians).  

This federal court decision enforces a 2021 permanent injunction in Garcia Ramirez v. ICE, which requires ICE to comply with their statutory obligations by considering the least restrictive setting available for every unaccompanied child who turns18 and to make all age-outs eligible for alternatives to detention. 

“This ruling makes clear that ICE cannot secretly flout the law or blatantly ignore court orders,” said Suchita Mathur, senior litigation attorney with the American Immigration Council. “ICE tried to detain newly-18-year-olds as a matter of course. These are kids that ICE officers have found, in almost all cases, do not pose a danger or flight risk, with sponsors, families, and community support waiting for them. This decision puts a stop to that.” 

Under a new policy published October 1, ICE told shelters and attorneys that all unaccompanied children turning 18 would be transferred to adult detention, even when they had safe homes and sponsors waiting to receive them. Adult detention threatens the teenagers’ short- and long-term development. Currently, ICE is holding a record number of people in detention, fueling overcrowding and dehumanizing conditions like lack of adequate medical care, abusive treatment, and restricted access to legal and psychological help. The court found that automatically sending teens into adult detention, without considering safer, age-appropriate alternatives, is a violation of the law.  

“Today’s ruling sends a powerful message: ICE can’t put teenagers in dangerous, overcrowded facilities just because they turned 18,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of federal litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “There are safer, lawful options that keep young people connected to school, family, and community. That’s what the law requires, and that’s what this order restores.” 

The court’s ruling requires ICE to immediately stop following its October 1 guidance and to remove anyone placed under detention as a result.

Read the court order here and the opinion here.

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Supporting Working Families Through Flexible, Affordable Childcare

KidsPark is a national franchise that opened with a simple mission: to provide accessible, responsible hourly daycare for families who can’t—or don’t want to—use full-day childcare. Parents can drop off their kids anytime during operating hours for as little or as much time as they need. No reservations are required, and parents pay by the hour.

The model proved to be a success. Now, 37 years later, KidsPark is a national franchise, with daycare centers operating in nine states. Sisters Beth Christie and Heather Alanis jumped in 17 years ago, opening the first KidsPark center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.¹

“We have families who use us five days a week. or parents who just drop in as needed,” said Beth.

KidsPark strives to support low- and middle-income parents, for whom standard childcare may be prohibitively expensive—potentially pushing them out of the workforce for years. Many parents manage to juggle conflicting work shifts to ensure one can always be with the kids. Even so, they still need affordable care during the overlap, when both are at work. “The hourly drop-off allows them to minimize their childcare costs,” said Beth.

Currently, parents pay $12 per hour for one child, and an additional $6 per hour for each sibling—less than many independent babysitters. “Having quality staff that can take good care of your children and keeping rates low for parents, it’s definitely a balancing act,” said Beth.

KidsPark typically hires young people, often college students. All the current teachers are in their 20s. The directors are in their 30s.

From the beginning, immigrants have been vital to the success of KidsPark Arlington. “We’ve always relied in the childcare industry on people who have come here from another country, or are first- or second-generation,” said Heather.

Often these young people are studying to become nurses or schoolteachers. Beth said, “It’s just fun to see caregiving as a personality type.”

“The young women who work for us tend to be very family oriented,” she said. “We have, over the years, hired cousins and sisters because we believe they work so well together, and all of them have come from immigrant families.”

Immigrants and children of immigrants also bring bilingual skills, which benefit children from all backgrounds, particularly in a diverse area like Dallas, where immigrant workers serve vital roles in construction, manufacturing, healthcare, and more.² “We want our staff to reflect our customers,” said Beth. “We’ve loved having teachers that are bilingual.”

“The teachers that have come from immigrant families have generally been the kindest, most diligent, hard workers,” said Beth. “I have found myself in awe of some of the young women who have come through the center, their work ethic. And they’ve brought so much love to the center.”

1. Beth Christie and Heather Alanis, interview with author, October 8, 2025. ↩︎
2. American Immigration Council, “Immigration in the Dallas–Fort Worth Area,” accessed November 11, 2025, https://ift.tt/M925okI. ↩︎

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A Life Rebuilt Through Caregiving in Bentonville, Arkansas

It was Laura’s late husband who moved the family to the United States—to help his parents start a ministry in Bentonville, Arkansas. His parents were retired missionaries who had immigrated to the United States years earlier and were, by then, U.S. citizens.²⁴

“I didn’t want to come,” Laura said, but for three years her in-laws kept pushing. “They were insisting.”

Five years after Laura agreed to relocate, her husband was killed in an accident, leaving her with two children who had integrated into their new life in the United States. “I started doing any kind of job I could do because I needed to support myself,” she said. “I knew that not having a social security number I couldn’t apply anywhere.”

Unauthorized to work in the United States, Laura did what so many immigrant women in her situation do: she worked as a babysitter and nanny. There was always plenty of work, and she was, and still is, good at it, she said. “Every single day I show up.” When a family asked if she knew anyone who cleaned houses, she said, “I know no one, but I can do it.”

Laura spent 14 years taking care of other people’s children. Most of the parents, all U.S.-born, worked for Walmart, which has its headquarters in Bentonville.

Last year, when Laura became authorized to work in the United States, she took a full-time job at a friend’s office. But she still works part-time for the family she had been nannying for. “I take my lunchtime at 3:30 p.m., and I pick up the kids from school.” She remains in high demand for her childcare work. “A lot of families know me.”

Laura is grateful for the babysitting work, and to have been able to help these American families. “The family I worked for for many years, that family was a blessing,” she said. “They paid me very well. Every year they gave me a bonus. They valued my work.”

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Immigrant Nannies Make Work Possible for a New York Family

Liz is a fourth-generation New Yorker who found her family’s first nanny through a neighborhood parent group, and their second—after a break during COVID-19 when they lived with her parents—through a nanny co-operative. Both nannies were immigrants, simply because, as Liz put it, “The bulk of nannies who are working in Brooklyn are immigrants.”⁵

“We decided to go with a nanny when my first son was very young because he had pretty serious food allergies, and managing his food was a pretty concerted effort,” she said. Both Liz and her husband work, and both would like to continue doing so.

Liz works in child welfare and philanthropy, helping families across the country care for their children. Her husband is a medical researcher, helping to develop next-generation gene therapies that are already saving lives.

“I like working. I want to be working. I think that the work I do is worth doing,” she said. “If I didn’t have somebody who I thought was safe and caring and aligned with my kids every day then I wouldn’t be working.”

The current nanny, Maria, has worked with the family for four years.⁶ She provides daytime care for their three children, ages 2 through 6, for 42 hours a week. She makes $36 per hour plus overtime, equating to about $80,000 per year.

It’s certainly a substantial sum, and Liz is grateful that she and her husband can afford it. But, said Liz, daycare is also expensive. Three-child families like Liz’s in New York City pay an annual average of $69,000 for daycare.⁷

“The nanny’s work makes all the other work happen. My kids adore her, fully and completely, and they’re legitimately obsessed with her kid,” who the nanny sometimes brings with her, Liz said. “These are essential and important and contributing members to our society and economy.”

Interacting with the nanny gives the children exposure to another culture—over and above the occasional informal Spanish lesson. “We live in a diverse city, and I want my kids to know a variety of people from a variety of places, and to value people from different backgrounds,” Liz said. The family can trust that Maria will devote the personalized attention their children need: “My son with anaphylactic allergies has never had a reaction with her. And I can’t say the same for me.”

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Canada Study Permit Cap: Master’s and PhD Students Not Affected

In the new year, January 1, 2026, master’s and PhD students at Canadian public colleges and universities will not be included in the national study permit cap which was announced in Canada’s 2026-2028 annual levels plan.

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New Podcast Feature: Beyond Borders – Why Cultural Exchange Still Matters

We’re excited to share that Lisa Murray, Program Director for Cultural Exchange at the American Immigration Council, recently joined the Beyond Borders podcast to discuss the lasting value of international exchange programs and how they strengthen communities, institutions, and global understanding.

In the episode, Lisa highlights:

• The diplomacy and people-to-people connections at the heart of cultural exchange
• How programs like ours shape early-career pathways and global talent mobility
• Why fostering cross-cultural dialogue is more important now than ever

👉 Listen to the full conversation here:  Beyond Borders: Why Cultural Exchange Still Matters – Erickson Immigration Group

We hope you enjoy the conversation and share it with others who care about the future of exchange.

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Amidst Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign, Report Shows Access to Lawyers is Critical

New Report Shows Having a Lawyer is a Critical Safeguard Against Deportation 

Washington DC, Nov. 20 — As the Trump administration intensifies its mass deportation and detention campaign, a new report from the American Immigration Council shows that legal representation is one of the most powerful tools to increase fairness in immigration court. 

Read the report here.

The analysis of more than 2.28 million immigration court cases from FY2019 to FY2024 reveals that having a lawyer dramatically reduces the likelihood of being ordered deported. The data also reveals that case outcomes vary dramatically depending on whether someone is detained and where their case is heard, factors that are increasingly undermining fairness in the immigration court system. 

The report, Where Can You Win in Immigration Court? The Impact of Lawyers, Detention, Geography, and Policy, lands at a moment when the Trump administration is dramatically increasing the number of people targeted for deportation and narrowing their access to due process.  

“The Trump administration’s enforcement surge is exposing just how vulnerable people are when they go into immigration court without a lawyer,” said Adriel Orozco, report author and senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. “Americans expect that every single person should get a fair hearing before a judge. While in the current moment of mass arrests and rapid removals that is increasingly difficult, having a lawyer is often critical in protecting a person’s right to argue their case.” 

The report’s findings include: 

• Access to legal representation is a life-changing protection in immigration court. Of the immigration court cases decided from FY 2019–2024, 62 percent of immigrants without a lawyer were ordered deported, compared to 27 percent of those who did have legal aid.  

• Without a lawyer, the odds collapse, especially for those in detention. Of the courts that had the highest deportation rates, more than 90 percent of cases involving people in detention ended in removal orders.  

• Access to legal representation is deeply uneven across geography. Non-detained immigrants in Honolulu had a legal representation rate of 70 percent, while in Harlingen, Texas, it was just 25 percent.  

• Case outcomes shifted sharply between the Trump and Biden administrations. Under Trump (in FY2019), nearly 80 percent of cases ended in removal orders. Under Biden (FY2024), that number was just 40 percent.  

Explore the data here.

The disparities highlighted in this report are likely to intensify because of the current Trump administration policies. Immigration courts are already strained by unprecedented backlogs. The Trump mass deportation and detention campaign is creating even greater chaos, amidst the reassignment and firing of immigration judges, the expansion of “fast-track” deportation, and other policies that limit opportunities for people to present evidence or secure counsel. All of this raises fundamental questions about guaranteeing those in immigration court access to justice, and the integrity of the courts themselves. 

“This report makes one thing clear: ensuring access to a qualified lawyer is a powerful way of protecting someone against unjust or erroneous deportation,” said Orozco. “But whether someone gets a lawyer depends far too much on where they are, whether they’re detained, and which policies happen to be in place. With detentions set to skyrocket thanks to record funding approved by Congress, having a lawyer is critical in a system that this administration is deliberately breaking down.” 

The full report and interactive data, which includes a court-by-court breakdown, is available here. The tool lets users explore outcomes by location, detention status, and representation, offering one of the most detailed looks at immigration court trends to date. 

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SCOTUS Grants Review of Ninth Circuit Decision Holding Turnbacks of Asylum Seekers Unlawful

Washington (November 17, 2025) – Today, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to review a Ninth Circuit decision that declared unlawful the U.S. government’s prior turnback policy, which the government calls  “metering.” Under this policy, border officers physically blocked people from seeking asylum at ports of entry along the southern border, turning them back to Mexico.

In response, attorneys for the asylum seekers and Al Otro Lado, the organization serving them, shared the following comment:

“The issue before the Court is whether noncitizens seeking safety at ports of entry along the U.S. southern border have a legal right to apply for asylum in the United States. As the Ninth Circuit correctly concluded, our immigration laws require the government to inspect and process people seeking asylum at ports of entry and allow them to pursue their legal claims in the United States. The government’s turnback policy was an illegal scheme to circumvent these requirements by physically blocking asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry and preventing them from crossing the border to seek protection. Vulnerable families, children, and adults fleeing persecution were stranded in perilous conditions where they faced violent assault, kidnapping, and death. We look forward to presenting our case to the Court.”

The American Immigration Council, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS), the Center for Constitutional Rights, Democracy Forward, and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection serve as co-counsel.

For more information on the case, see here, here and here.

# # #

Al Otro Lado provides holistic legal and humanitarian support to refugees, deportees, and other migrants in the US and Tijuana through a multidisciplinary, client-centered, harm reduction-based practice.  They engage in individual representation, human rights monitoring, medical-legal partnerships, and impact litigation to protect the rights of immigrants and people seeking asylum.

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications.

The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies defends the human rights of courageous refugees seeking asylum in the United States. With strategic focus and unparalleled legal expertise, CGRS champions the most challenging cases, fights for due process, and promotes policies that deliver safety and justice for refugees.

The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. 

The Democracy Forward Foundation is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy, public education, and regulatory engagement. 

The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection is a non-partisan, public interest organization within Georgetown Law. ICAP engages in litigation, policy, and public education to defend constitutional rights and protect our democratic processes.

##

Media contact:

Elyssa Pachico, American Immigration Council, epachico@immcouncil.org, 503-850-8407

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Lawsuit Challenges the Department of Education Over New Public Service Loan Forgiveness Rule

Washington, D.C., Nov. 4 — Four non-profit public-interest organizations filed a lawsuit today to challenge a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that threatens to disqualify certain employers from eligibility for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The plaintiffs in the case — Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the American Immigration Council, The Door – A Center of Alternatives, Inc., and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) — are represented by Student Defense and Public Citizen Litigation Group.

ED established the new rule in response to an Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump. Finalized on October 31, the rule allows ED to disqualify employers from the PSLF program that are deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose” by the Secretary of Education. Under the rule, ED will decide for itself whether this standard is met, based on its unilateral determination that an organization has engaged in activities disfavored by the administration concerning immigration, gender affirming care, and purported discrimination, along with other areas. The rule’s vague and overbroad language permits arbitrary enforcement against mission-driven organizations doing work or expressing opinions opposed by the government. 

ED’s new regulation threatens to harm many of the 2.5 million federal student loan borrowers who have collectively worked more than 100 million months in public service jobs in order to qualify for PSLF forgiveness. 

“The Rule will make it more difficult for employers in certain fields, such as advocacy on behalf of immigrants, to recruit and train employees, and will chill politically disfavored but legal activities by PSLF employers.” the complaint states. “The Rule is contrary to the PSLF statute, exceeds the Department’s regulatory authority, and violates the constitutional rights of nonprofits whose employees are statutorily eligible for PSLF.”

PSLF was created in 2007 to encourage students to pursue public service careers after graduation. The program offers federal student loan forgiveness to those who spend ten years repaying such loans while working full time in a public service job. The statute creating the program provides a clear list of qualifying employers, which include military service, emergency management, public health, government, public safety, law enforcement, early childhood education and library science, and all 501(c)(3) organizations, among others. 

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the new rule unlawful and to declare that ED lacks the legal authority to change the statutory criteria for PSLF. 

“Congress created PSLF to support those who work in public service jobs, not to let the President play favorites. The Trump administration should not be allowed to use a program designed to reward public service as a weapon against its political enemies,” said Cormac Early, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel on the case.

“Congress made a promise that if Americans give back to the country, the country will give back to them. Now the Trump Administration wants the power to renege on that promise if they disagree with your employer’s mission or perceived political views,” said Student Defense President Aaron Ament. “This new, unlawful rule is a slap in the face to the millions of first responders, health workers, teachers, and other public servants who believed the government could be trusted to keep its word.”

“The Trump Administration’s attack on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program strikes at the heart of civic space and public service. By targeting individuals who choose to work in nonprofits defending the human rights of immigrants and advancing diversity, inclusion, and transgender rights, this rule seeks to silence voices for equity and justice while weakening these organizations’ ability to recruit the next generation of leaders,” said Kerry Kennedy, President, RFK Human Rights.

“Public Service Loan Forgiveness was a clear commitment from the government to individuals who have dedicated themselves to public service,” said Jorge Loweree, Managing Director of Programs and Strategy at the American Immigration Council. “This regulation weaponizes that commitment. No one should be forced to choose between supporting their neighbors and securing the financial stability they were promised.”

“Latino families across the country rely on mission-driven nonprofits for immigration assistance, health care, and programs that support underserved young adults. This rule hands any administration a blank check to punish nonprofits it dislikes and jeopardizes the future of the teachers, nurses, veterans, and legal advocates who serve the public every day,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the LULAC Institute. “LULAC Institute joined this case to defend the statute, protect our workforce, and ensure Latino borrowers are never forced to choose between serving their community and keeping a promise the government already made.” 

Read the complaint here.

###

About Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights:
RFK Human Rights is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization, founded in 1968, that works to realize Robert F. Kennedy’s dream of a more just and peaceful world. In partnership with local activists, RFKHR advocates for key human rights issues—championing change makers and pursuing strategic litigation in the U.S. and around the globe. And to ensure change that lasts, RFKHR fosters a social-good approach to business and investment and educates the next generation of leaders about human rights and social justice.

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 

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 our 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 www.citizen.org/litigation. 

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.

Media Contacts: 

RFK Human Rights

Amy Zelvin Reid

reid@rfkhumanrights.org 

American Immigration Council 

Elyssa Pachico

epachico@immcouncil.org 

The Door – A Center of Alternatives

Kirkley Strand

kstrand@door.org 

LULAC

David Cruz

davidcruz@lulac.org 

Public Citizen Litigation Group

Omar Baddar

obaddar@citizen.org 

Student Defense

Kerry Leary

press@defendstudents.org 

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New Platform Details the Chaos Behind Family Separation

Transparency Project Offers New Insight into the First Trump Administration’s Implementation of Family Separations

Oct. 30, 2025, WASHINGTON, D.C. —Today, the American Immigration Council launched a platform analyzing new records about the U.S. government’s chaotic implementation of family separations during the zero-tolerance period and its aftermath.

The transparency project details how the first Trump administration carried out one of the most shameful immigration policies in modern history. The project also sheds light on how certain stakeholders responded to the crisis, providing important lessons on how the public resisted one of the most egregious and harmful policies of the first Trump administration.  

Explore the data here.

Drawing on thousands of internal government emails, memos, and never-before-seen datasets obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation, the project shows how the first Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy was a calculated system designed to deter migrants from coming to the United States by punishing families and obscuring accountability.

“Thanks to these records, we can more clearly see the inner workings of how this atrocity was carried out and the public’s struggle to obtain transparency and accountability,” said Raul Pinto, deputy legal director for transparency at the American Immigration Council. “The same disregard for oversight and human consequences that made family separation possible is now re-emerging in the ongoing mass detention and deportation efforts.”

The family separation project features interactive visualizations and declassified documents that reveal how families were literally erased from government databases, how officials misled the public, and how congressional oversight and media exposure helped end the policy. The project includes audio recordings of actor Corey Stoll reading key internal government emails that reveal the confusion and callousness behind the policy’s implementation. (Listen here). 

Key findings from the archive include:

• Officials knew their data on separated families was “corrupt.” Internal emails show ICE leaders admitting they had “not very much” confidence in their own data on children taken from their parents, even as they publicly denied wrongdoing.
• Oversight from Congress, the press, and regulatory agencies played a key role in ending family separation. However, since then, as of 2025 key oversight bodies like the DHS Inspector General and the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties have been sidelined or defunded.
• Family separation was built around intentional chaos. The records show how confusion was weaponized: ensuring significant delays in reunifying children with their parents.

“The records don’t just show government officials’ egregiousness and cruelty. They serve as a warning for our current moment of mass detention and deportation that is still seeing families separated,” said Pinto. “These records show how data manipulation and secrecy enabled systemic human rights violations during the first Trump administration. Without transparency and oversight, history will repeat itself.”

Explore the data here.

The portal, created after years of FOIA litigation by the American Immigration Council and its partners, allows journalists, researchers, and policymakers to explore key documents and data that expose the inner workings of family separation and the failures that followed.

Despite public claims that the policy ended in June 2018, hundreds of children remained separated from their parents for years, and some have still not been reunited. “Family separation was a national shame made possible by bureaucratic indifference to human suffering,” said Pinto. “The lesson here is clear: a collapse of oversight allows for cruelty to fill the vacuum.”

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Federal Appeals Court Upholds Block on Iowa’s Unconstitutional Anti-Immigrant Law

Ruling Protects Families and Upholds Constitutional Limits on State Power 

Oct 23, 2025, WASHINGTON DC — In a sweeping victory for immigrant communities and the rule of law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit today upheld an injunction blocking Iowa’s SF 2340. This law, Iowa’s worst-ever on immigration, would have made it a crime for certain immigrants to live in Iowa, even if they are now authorized to be in the United States. 

The law would also have allowed local officials to handle arrests and deportations. This is something that they do not have power to do under the Constitution, as immigration law is handled by federal authorities in order to ensure one consistent national policy, not a patchwork of 50 different state rules that could separate families and create chaos.

“This is a tremendous relief for thousands of Iowa families,” said Erica Johnson, founding executive director of Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice (Iowa MMJ), the organization that brought the lawsuit. “The court’s decision confirms that key members of our community should never have been criminalized simply for being here and living their lives in peace. This ruling restores a sense of safety and dignity to people who call Iowa home.”

The lawsuit, Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice v. Bird, was brought by Iowa MMJ and two individual plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU of Iowa, the ACLU Immigrant Rights’ Project, and the American Immigration Council. 

SF 2340 would have made it a crime for non-citizens who had ever been deported or denied entry to the United States to live in Iowa, even if they later received lawful status or federal permission to return. The law would also empower state and local law enforcement to arrest people for their mere presence in the state, and would require state judges to issue deportation orders. Under the Constitution, these powers belong only to the federal government, to ensure that families aren’t torn apart by conflicting rules across state lines.

“SF2340 is the worst anti-immigrant law in Iowa’s history. Today’s ruling keeps SF2340 blocked and protects immigrants in Iowa from many serious harms: arrest, detention, deportation, family separation, and incarceration, all by the state. At a time when the federal government is causing so much harm to families, it’s all the more important that the state is not permitted to make things even worse. The Court reaffirmed that the Iowa legislature does not have authority to pass its own immigration laws to detain and deport people,” said Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa. “Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and this decision protects families and ensures that our laws are applied fairly and consistently.”

The law was originally enacted on April 10, 2024 and blocked from going into effect on June 17, 2024; the state of Iowa then appealed the decision. (Review more documents in the ongoing legal case here). Due to this most recent Eighth Circuit ruling, the law will remain blocked for now as the case continues in federal court.

“The Eighth Circuit’s decision resonates far beyond Iowa,” said Emma Winger, deputy legal director at the American Immigration Council. “Across the country, we’re seeing states attempt to take immigration enforcement into their own hands. This could create a reality in which a person could be welcomed in one state and arrested in the next, just for crossing a border. Under our Constitution, immigration has to be handled at a federal level so families aren’t trapped in chaos. This ruling upholds that principle.” 

“Today the Eighth Circuit reiterated what the Supreme Court has said for over a hundred years: States have no business regulating immigration on their own,” said Spencer Amdur, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s national immigrants’ rights project. “This law would have torn families apart and denied people their right to live in this country and seek legal protections. The court was right to strike it down, just like courts have done for other laws like this around the country.”

See past documents in the lawsuit here. 

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National Immigrant Rights Organizations Sue the Federal Government Over Withheld Records on ICE Arrests in Immigration Courts

Washington, D.C, October 15 — Today, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the American Immigration Council, and Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, demanding the release of critical records the government has unlawfully withheld about arrests at immigration courts and the dismissal of immigration cases.  

Read the lawsuit filing here.

Since May 20, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) and Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), have been taking part in a coordinated effort to detain noncitizens appearing for hearings in immigration courts nationwide.  

Arresting people who voluntarily show up for their immigration court dates in search of protection is a deeply problematic practice. Immigration courts are not criminal courts and are supposed to be places that guarantee fair hearings, not act as pipelines into detention. When those who show up seeking a fair day in court are instead arrested, it undermines core tenets of our democracy, discourages people from pursuing their legal rights, and inflicts serious human costs.   

Additionally, ICE attorneys have been asking immigration judges to dismiss cases and shift people into expedited removal, a fast-track process with fewer due process protections and no path to permanent residence. The EOIR, the agency which runs the immigration courts, has directed immigration judges to grant these dismissals on the spot, even though this violates agency policy and long-standing practice. 

Seeking to better understand how and why arrests at immigration courts are taking place, LatinoJustice and the American Immigration Council filed a total of 11 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, six with the EOIR and five with ICE on July 28 and 29, 2025. The requests seek basic information about arrests and dismissals around immigration courts, and communications between and within the agencies coordinating these activities. LatinoJustice and the Council also asked for these requests to be handled quickly through expedited processing.     

Yet to date, the government has failed to provide timely and adequate responses to ten of these FOIA requests, in violation of the law. The EOIR has declared that it cannot find any guidance it issued to immigration judges about dismissing cases and courthouse arrests, even though a copy of applicable guidance has been leaked to the public. The EOIR has also refused to even search for records about the extent of its coordination with ICE, while ICE has ignored or delayed the processing of all the requests to it.  

“Our FOIA requests seek to shine a light on how ICE operates in immigration courts, where families are fighting to keep their families together and for their future,” said Rex Chen, supervising counsel for Immigrant Rights at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “Instead of transparency, they have chosen secrecy, stonewalling or have provided inadequate responses to our request. It is unacceptable to prolong this urgent matter.” 

“Families’ futures are on the line. That’s why we need to better understand how these arrests at immigration courts are being carried out, and the degree to which supposedly independent and neutral agencies like the EOIR are pushing a mass deportation agenda. The public has a right to know what the EOIR and ICE are doing behind closed doors,” said Chris Opila, staff attorney for transparency at the American Immigration Council.

Read the lawsuit filing here.

“The public has a right to know when our government rewrites the rules to make mass arrests and deny people of due process — especially inside the very courtrooms meant to deliver justice,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is separately litigating to challenge these arrests. “The administration cannot hide guidance that turns immigration courts into traps and accelerates deportations without fair hearings. We will not allow these agencies to operate in the shadows. Transparency is the first safeguard against abuse of power, and we’re in court to demand accountability.” 

The lawsuit seeks to compel the four agencies to comply fully with FOIA and turn over all the documents responsive to 7 of the requests. It also demands the expedited disclosure of guidance directives and correspondence between ICE and the EOIR.  

About LatinoJustice  
LatinoJustice PRLDEF works to create a more just society by using and challenging the rule of law to secure transformative, equitable and accessible justice, by empowering our community and by fostering leadership through advocacy and education. For over 50 years, LatinoJustice PRLDEF has acted as an advocate against injustices throughout the country. To learn more about LatinoJustice, visit www.LatinoJustice.org  

About Democracy Forward Foundation 

Democracy Forward Foundation is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy, public education, and regulatory engagement. For more information, please visit www.democracyforward.org  

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 and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. In January 2022, the Council and New American Economy merged to combine a broad suite of advocacy tools to better expand and protect the rights of immigrants, more fully ensure immigrants’ ability to succeed economically, and help make the communities they settle in more welcoming. Follow the latest Council news and information on BlueSky @immcouncil.org and Instagram at @immcouncil. 

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Legal Groups File Emergency Motion to Stop ICE from Jailing Immigrant Teens in Adult Detention

Washington, D.C, October 4 — Advocacy groups the American Immigration Council and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) filed an emergency motion on October 4, seeking to enforce a 2021 court ruling (in the Garcia Ramirez v. ICE case) that prevents ICE from illegally locking up unaccompanied immigrant children in adult detention centers once they turn 18. 

The Council and NIJC filed the motion after multiple documented cases emerged in which ICE resumed its practice of seeking to transfer immigrant children who entered the U.S. alone into adult detention facilities once they turned 18, in violation of the permanent injunction in the Garcia Ramirez case.

“The permanent injunction made clear that ICE cannot automatically transfer young people to adult detention centers simply because they have turned 18,” said Michelle Lapointe, legal director at the American Immigration Council. “Locking up these young people in ICE jails rife with overcrowding and hazardous conditions, and far from their support systems, does nothing to make our communities safer, it only inflicts more harm on vulnerable youth.”

When children under 18 enter the United States alone, they are placed in shelters run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and are generally released to family members or other vetted sponsors in the U.S., not to ICE detention centers. These policies recognize that children need care and support, not punishment. 

Under the Garcia Ramirez court ruling that resulted from yearslong litigation by the NIJC and the Council and a lengthy bench trial, once these youths turn 18, ICE must consider placement in the least restrictive setting, like an alternative-to-detention program, rather than throwing them into immigration detention. 

“ICE’s attempt to expand the detention of immigrant youth is a direct violation of the courts, which explicitly requires the agency to consider safe, less restrictive alternatives to detention,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “We will not allow the government to turn back the clock and return to a practice that the courts have already found unlawful.”

The number of people in immigration detention has reached record highs, fueling overcrowding and abusive conditions. The Trump administration is weaponizing the threat of prolonged confinement in these dangerous facilities to coerce people into giving up their legal rights and accepting deportation. This pressure campaign is being reinforced by new policies such as a program offering financial payments to unaccompanied youths if they agree to leave the country.

“The law is clear: ICE must use safe, less restrictive alternatives, not default to jailing young people indefinitely,” said Marie Silver, managing attorney for NIJC’s Immigrant Children’s Protection Project. “These kids came here seeking safety and hope. They deserve a chance to be free and reunify with family and community members, attend school, and work with their lawyers to have their day in court. Trapping them in dangerous and degrading conditions in immigration detention is compounding their trauma in a cruel and unnecessary way.”

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Nayna Gupta Testifies at Shadow Hearing on Deportation’s Impact on Families and Communities

On September 18, 2025, the American Immigration Council’s Policy Director, Nayna Gupta, delivered testimony at a Shadow Hearing hosted by U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

The hearing, Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Assault Destroys U.S. Families and Communities, is the third in Rep. Jayapal’s series examining the devastating human costs of deportation.

In her testimony, Gupta highlighted how deportation policies:

• Tear apart families and destabilize communities
• Undermine due process and fairness in the U.S. immigration system
• Weaken the values of justice and dignity that should define America

At the Council, we are committed to building an immigration system that protects families, safeguards due process, and reflects the values of justice and dignity.

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Georgia’s Historic Worksite Raid Underscores the Chaos Fueled by Trump’s Immigration Agenda

WASHINGTON DC, Sept. 5 — On September 4, law enforcement agents from several state and federal agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), executed a sweeping immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in southeastern Georgia. The raid reportedly resulted in at least 475 workers detained, many of whom were South Korean nationals — including some with legal status. It is the largest raid ever conducted in recent history at a single work site.  

In response, the American Immigration Council issued the following commentary. 

“These raids don’t make anyone safer. They terrorize workers, destabilize communities, and push families into chaos,” said Michelle Lapointe, legal director at the American Immigration Council, who is based in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  “This historic raid may make dramatic headlines, but it does nothing to fix the problems in our broken immigration system: a lack of legal pathways and a misguided focus on punishing workers and families who pose no threat to our communities. Raiding work sites isn’t reform, it’s political theater at the expense of families, communities, and our economy.” 

“Immigrant workers are the backbone of our economy, filling critical labor gaps in manufacturing and beyond. Nationwide, 5.7% of manufacturing workers are undocumented, and here in Georgia they make up 6.7% of that workforce. Raiding worksites instead of fixing our pathways to legal employment is cruel, wasteful, and deeply shortsighted. The chilling effect of these raids will make it less likely that people will show up to work, deepening labor shortages and hitting businesses hard at an already precarious economic moment,” said Nan Wu, director of research at the American Immigration Council.  

Council experts are available to discuss why worksite raids are counterproductive and harmful, and what smarter, more effective immigration solutions look like. 

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Nearly Half of Fortune 500 Companies in 2025 Founded by Immigrants or Their Children

WASHINGTON, DC, August 21, 2025 — A new analysis of the 2025 Fortune 500 list reveals that 46.2 percent of America’s largest companies (231 out of 500) were founded by immigrants or their children. These companies generated a staggering $8.6 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2024 and employed over 15.4 million people worldwide, underscoring the essential role immigrants play in driving innovation, economic growth, and job creation in the United States. 

See our findings here. 

This is the highest level recorded since Council researchers started tracking immigrant entrepreneurs in annual reviews of the Fortune 500 list since 2011.   

“Immigrants are a driving force behind America’s prosperity. We need immigration policies that reflect that, instead of investing billions of dollars into detention, deportation, and making it incredibly difficult for foreign workers to come here or even renew their visas. These reckless policies undermine America’s greatest competitive advantage: the talent and drive of immigrants,” said Nan Wu, director of research at the American Immigration Council.  

Businesses founded by immigrants or their children continue to transform entire industries, from technology to retail to media. Companies on the list include Amazon, Apple, NVIDIA, Levi Strauss & Co., Ace Hardware, and Sirius XM Holdings.  

Explore the data here. 

Key findings include: 

• In fiscal year 2024, these Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants or their children generated $8.6 trillion in revenue—an amount that, if compared with national GDPs, would rank as the third-largest economy globally. 
• Collectively, these companies employed over 15.4 million people worldwide—a workforce comparable to the population of the fifth-largest U.S. state. 
• Immigrants and their children founded 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies in professional and other services, 65.6 percent in manufacturing, and 57.5 percent in information.   
• Among the 14 companies appearing on the Fortune 500 list for the first time this year, 10 were founded by immigrants or their children.  

“Immigrants built nearly half of our Fortune 500 companies, created millions of jobs, and keep our economy competitive. And yet U.S. political leaders are making it increasingly difficult for foreign talent to come here or stay. It’s economic self-sabotage. If we want to stay the world’s innovation leader, we should be welcoming immigrants, not attacking them,” said Steve Hubbard, senior data scientist at the American Immigration Council.  

The American Immigration Council has experts available to comment further about the benefits that immigrants bring to the U.S. economy, at a national and state level.

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Can Pilots or Flight Attendants go to Canada with a Criminal Record?

If you are a pilot or flight attendant, your career depends on being able to enter different countries smoothly. Having a single past criminal record can create serious obstacles that could limit or block your work. However, there are legal options available for you to be able to fulfill your professional duty to overcome these challenges and keep cruising the air. 

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Applying for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) to Canada with a criminal record

Canada is happy to welcome eligible foreigners for tourism, business, or family visits and has made this process quick and easy for foreigners from visa-exempt countries with the Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) system. However, if you have a past or ongoing criminal record, you will need to take some extra steps before you book that flight to Canada.

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Can I go to Canada with a Felony on my Record?

Canada is a popular destination for many Americans, whether it is for business meetings, tourism, or family visits. While visiting Canada is as easy as driving through the border, if you have a criminal record, things could be much more complicated.

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New Report Reveals Devastating Impact of Trump’s Expanded Travel Ban

$715 Million in Taxes, $2.5 Billion in Spending Power at Risk

WASHINGTON, DC, August 6 — A new report released today by the American Immigration Council details the sweeping economic and humanitarian toll of the Trump administration’s June 2025 travel ban, which restricts immigration from 19 countries. In 2022, nearly 300,000 people from these countries came to the United States, filling critical jobs and paying up to  $715.6 million in taxes.

“Those affected by this travel ban are students, workers, and family members who pay taxes, support local economies, and fill jobs in industries facing massive shortages. We’re throwing all of that away, to the detriment of our communities and the U.S. economy,” said Nan Wu, research director of the American Immigration Council. 

According to 2023 data, of the 300,000 people from countries affected by the travel ban, 82 percent were working, especially in industries already strained by labor shortages, including  hospitality, construction, and manufacturing. The manufacturing industry alone is projected to experience a shortage of 1.9 million workers by 2033. 

“The United States absolutely needs strong screening procedures to protect national security, but this travel ban isn’t how you do that. The Trump administration is trying to sell this policy as a security measure, but when you dig into the justifications, they don’t add up,” said Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council. “Many of the targeted countries had fewer than 500 visa overstays last year. This isn’t about keeping America safe, it’s about keeping certain people out.”

While the 2017 travel ban prompted a swift and forceful public outcry, the report notes that the 2025 version has been met with a more muted reaction, largely due to its more gradual rollout and expanded exemptions. But that doesn’t mean the damage is any less severe.

“This quieter version of the ban is deeply harmful,” added Robbins. “It separates families, blocks international talent, and hurts communities across the country. The absence of airport protests doesn’t mean the harm isn’t real, it’s just happening more quietly and more bureaucratically.”

With reports indicating the administration is considering adding an additional 36 countries to the travel ban, should this happen, tens of thousands of more people from those countries could be barred from entering the United States, escalating the economic, social, and diplomatic fallout.

Countries affected by the travel ban include:

All travel banned 

• Afghanistan 
• Burma 
• Chad 
• Republic of Congo 
• Equatorial Guinea 
• Eritrea 
• Haiti 
• Iran 
• Libya 
• Somalia 
• Sudan 
• Yemen 

Visas sharply restricted 

• Venezuela 
• Burundi
• Cuba
• Laos
• Sierra Leone
• Togo
• Turkmenistan  

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Can I go to Canada with a Felony on my Record?

If you are an American citizen with a felony on your record, don’t wait until you are at the border to find out that you may not be allowed entry into Canada.

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New Report: Trump’s Second Term Ushers in Extreme Immigration Overhaul that Threatens Our Democracy

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 23, 2025 — A special report released today offers a sweeping analysis of the Trump administration’s first six months back in office, revealing an unprecedented transformation of the U.S. immigration system that strikes at the foundation of American democracy. While some voters may have supported a “tougher” approach on immigration when voting for Trump, the report describes how the administration’s extreme actions go far beyond policy shifts: they are corrosive to the rule of law itself. 

The report, titled Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America, published on July 23 by the American Immigration Council, lays out how the administration has executed a radical, multi-front attack on immigrants and the immigration system. 

Read the report here.

These actions have included limiting who can come to the United States, stripping legal protections from those already here, and ramping up enforcement to historic levels. And in the process, the Trump administration has dismantled long-standing legal protections, defied the authority of Congress and the courts, and weaponized government power against immigrants and dissenters alike. 

“This isn’t just a hardline immigration agenda,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council and co-author of the report. “It’s a wholesale effort to use immigrants and the U.S. immigration system to attack core tenets of our democracy and exercise unchecked executive power to realign the American government around exclusion and fear.”

Key findings from the report include:

• The end of asylum. Asylum at the southern border is effectively dead. The administration shut down the CBP One application and did not replace it with anything else. Asylum-seekers who approach a port of entry are turned away, and in some cases, asylum-seekers are being detained indefinitely, even after winning their cases.
• Demolishing the refugee program. The administration indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — except for white South Africans who have been fast-tracked via executive order and under dubious persecution claims. Tens of thousands of approved refugees remain stranded abroad.
• Mass revocation of legal status: The administration aggressively revoked humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from over a million people in just six months, stripping work permits and pushing many into undocumented status.
• Weaponizing bureaucracy: Legal immigration pathways are being jammed by massive fee hikes, processing freezes, and opaque barriers that make it nearly impossible for even lawful applicants to get or maintain status.
• A maelstrom of fear and chaos: The Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics have caused immigrants of all legal statuses to constantly worry about their daily and future safety in the United States. Anyone can be targeted for arrest, detention, and deportation, and people can be targeted anywhere, including at churches, schools and courthouses.
• A radical reorganization of law enforcement resources: The Trump administration is creating an unprecedented, cross-agency immigration operation that draws on manpower across several federal and state law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military — prioritizing immigration enforcement above all other public safety and law enforcement goals.
• Turbocharging an inhumane detention system. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” enacted in July increases ICE’s detention budget by 308 percent on an annual basis. This sets the government up to radically expand a detention system whose careless and cruel management has already put tens of thousands of immigrants in life-threatening conditions.

The report includes powerful firsthand accounts:

• Ilia, a nonbinary Russian dissident who won their asylum case in court, but nonetheless remained in detention for over a year with no release date. 
• Axel, a DACA recipient and youth leader, is abandoning his job to return to school amid uncertainty over his legal status.
• Beatriz, an immigrant lawyer fighting for noncitizen kids  has seen cases that remind her of her own journey to the U.S. including a confused six-year-old who appeared in court with no representation whatsoever. 
• Kaelyn is going into debt to keep her partner from being deported to El Salvador’s megaprison under the Alien Enemies Act. 

The report warns that while some policies may shift based on legal challenges in court, the administration’s broader agenda is clear: to permanently redefine who belongs in America, and how power is wielded by the federal government.

“The administration’s policies are reshaping the immigration system in ways that are unfair, unlawful, and out of step with core American values,” said Dara Lind, senior fellow at the Council and co-author of the report. “We’re seeing real harm to families, communities, and the rule of law, and the public deserves to understand what’s at stake.”

The full report is available here. Interviews with experts and impacted individuals are also available.

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After Detaining People in El Salvador Torture Prison for 125 Days, the U.S. Government Must Be Held Accountable for Disappearing Migrants

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, Saturday, 2025 — After 125 days imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious “megaprison,” the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), Venezuelan nationals Edicson Quintero Chacón and Jose Manuel Ramos Bastidas were released yesterday and placed on a U.S.-brokered flight to Venezuela, alongside approximately 250 other Venezuelans whom the United States paid to detain at CECOT. Counsel for both men expressed profound relief at their release, and emphasized the urgent need for accountability from the U.S. Government for disappearing them to CECOT in the first place. 

The U.S. government sent the men to CECOT on March 15, 2025, where they were held incommunicado and without charges in a facility widely condemned for mass arbitrary detention and inhumane treatment. Both Mr. Quintero and Mr. Bastidas had previously been ordered removed from the United States, after which they told a federal court that they just wanted to return home to Venezuela. The U.S. government sent them to CECOT instead. The terms of the agreement with El Salvador specify that the U.S. would send “members” of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), but there is no evidence linking the men to TdA. Their return to Venezuela was part of a prisoner swap deal that included the release from Venezuela of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. 

“This news of flights to Venezuela was like being hit with a bucket of cold water because my family had absolutely no idea this was happening,” said a member of Mr. Quintero Chacón’s family, who asked to remain anonymous. “Edicson should never have been sent to CECOT in the first place. No one should. He was treated cruelly and inhumanely when all he wanted was safety. This so-called prisoner swap doesn’t undo the injustice he suffered, nor the pain and terror that my family has had to endure in the past several months with no idea of whether we’d ever see him again.”

“We have been waiting for this moment for months, and I feel like I can finally breathe, knowing that Jose Manuel is now free from CECOT and on his way home,” said Roynerliz Rodriguez, partner of Jose Manuel Ramos Bastidas. “His son, whom he hasn’t seen since he was four months old, is eagerly waiting for him. These last months have been a living nightmare, not knowing anything about Jose Manuel and only imagining what he must be suffering. I am happy he is free from CECOT, but I also know that we will never be free of the shadow of this experience. There must be justice for all those who suffered this torture.”

Serious concerns remain regarding the legality and transparency of the U.S. government’s actions. Many of the individuals sent to CECOT by the U.S. government had pending asylum claims and expressed credible fear of return to Venezuela. Their forced return to Venezuela, without due process to address their requests for asylum in the United States raises significant questions about the United States’ compliance with domestic and international legal obligations.

Nor has there been any public accounting of how the U.S. government selected individuals for transfer to CECOT or the full scope of conditions they endured. To date, the U.S. government has not released a complete list of names of the people they paid El Salvador to detain, and it remains unclear whether each victim is accounted for. 

The use of foreign detention facilities, particularly those with documented records of systemic abuse, raises serious human rights and due process concerns. The U.S. government should not engage in detention outsourcing arrangements and should not collaborate with regimes that flagrantly violate human rights. There must be a full investigation into these disappearances and clear safeguards barring the Trump Administration from doing this again. 

“We are deeply relieved that Mr. Quintero Chacón and Mr. Ramos Bastidas are finally released from CECOT, but this should never have happened in the first place,” said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council. “The U.S. government paid to detain these men in one of the world’s most notorious prisons, then denied responsibility while they suffered. For months, the Trump administration misled the courts and the public, pretending it had no control over their fate. This deal proves otherwise. There must be a full investigation into how this happened, and accountability for the grave harm inflicted on these men.”

“We celebrate this news, along with the loved ones of  Mr. Quintero Chacón and Mr. Ramos Bastidas and over 250 Venezuelans who returned to Venezuela yesterday after being disappeared and tortured for months at the direction and expense of the United States government. The ‘deals’ made for these Venezuelans’ confinement and transfers between the United States, El Salvador, and Venezuela treat human beings as bargaining chips and underscore the cruel consequences of criminalizing migration and monetizing torture. The U.S. government must stop these abuses and uphold its obligations to protect the rights and dignity of all people,” said CJ Sandley, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“It is with great joy and relief that we celebrate Mr. Quintero Chacón’s and Mr. Ramos Bastidas’ safe return to Venezuela and long-overdue reunion with their loved ones. It is unconscionable that they and 250 other Venezuelan men were sent by the United States to be detained at CECOT and forced to endure suffering, the extent of which we still don’t fully know. The administration has tried to wash its hands of the individuals they sent to be tortured, but their release today shows just how involved the government has been throughout this entire process,” said Stephanie M. Alvarez-Jones, Southeast Regional Attorney at the National Immigration Project. “While we celebrate their long overdue release, the government must be held accountable for its outrageous actions.”

The American Immigration Council, Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National Immigration Project represent Mr. Quintero Chacón in his habeas corpus proceeding in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, where they have been fighting for his freedom from CECOT. National Immigration Project represents Mr. Ramos Bastidas in his habeas corpus proceeding, which is also before the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

For more information, contact:

Elyssa Pachico at the American Immigration Council, epachico@immcouncil.org 503 850 8407
Arianna Rosales, National Immigration Project, media@nipnlg.org
Jen Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights, press@ccrjustice.org 

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 and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. In January 2022, the Council and New American Economy merged to combine a broad suite of advocacy tools to better expand and protect the rights of immigrants, more fully ensure immigrants’ ability to succeed economically, and help make the communities they settle in more welcoming. Follow the latest Council news and information on BlueSky @immcouncil.org and Instagram at @immcouncil.

About the National Immigration Project: 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, Twitter/X, and Instagram at @NIPNLG.

About the Center for Constitutional Rights: The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Follow the Center for Constitutional Rights on Facebook, @theCCR on Twitter/X, and @ccrjustice on Instagram, and @ccrjustice.org on BlueSky.

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