Enforcement

The enforcement of immigration laws is a complex and hotly-debated topic. Learn more about the costs of immigration enforcement and the ways in which the U.S. can enforce our immigration laws humanely and in a manner that ensures due process.

Recent Features

All Enforcement Content

July 11, 2016

Last month, the Supreme Court announced that, in fall 2016, it will hear arguments in Jennings v. Rodriguez, a challenge to the prolonged detention of noncitizens in removal proceedings. At issue...

July 8, 2016

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the Flores Settlement (a 1997 agreement that set legal standards for the detention and release of immigrant children) applies to both...

July 7, 2016

This week, the Senate defeated cloture on motions to proceed—a motion to begin debate—on two “Sanctuary City” bills sponsored by Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Both bills...

July 5, 2016

In December 2012, then acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) David Aguilar had announced a policy restricting his agencies’ officers and agents from acting as interpreters for...

June 30, 2016

A judge in Arizona unsealed photographs central to ongoing litigation challenging deplorable and unconstitutional conditions in Border Patrol’s short-term detention facilities in the Tucson Sector...

June 22, 2016

The House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committees unveiled and passed out of committee their budgets for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which begins on October...

June 10, 2016

This week Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced his national security agenda, which included a plan to “secure the border.” As part of that plan, Speaker Ryan says, “...

June 6, 2016

Two years ago, the American Immigration Council released an analysis of data it had obtained from the Department of Homeland Security detailing an utter lack of responsiveness to complaints filed...

June 3, 2016

The massive immigrant detention industry is still growing. According to officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government is adding to its existing 637 facilities by opening...

May 31, 2016

Media outlets are reporting on the uptick in the number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. This trend is not surprising given the ongoing violence in Central America. The...

December 21, 2018

2018 proved that the only thing you can predict about the Trump administration’s immigration policy is it’s unpredictable. On Wednesday, two separate court decisions dealt blows to the Trump...

December 20, 2018

Data shows what many communities have been feeling the past couple of years: immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States has remained a priority for the Trump administration,...

December 20, 2018
The new policy would require many individuals seeking protection in the United States, including children and other vulnerable individuals, to remain in Mexico until their asylum claim is decided by an overwhelmingly backlogged U.S. immigration court system, potentially spending months or even years in life-threatening conditions.
December 18, 2018

In 2018 alone, the Center for Disease Control has been called to investigate 24 instances of foodborne disease outbreaks, marking the highest number of investigations since 2006. These recent...

December 17, 2018

In a year marked by the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to deter asylum-seeking families from coming to the United States, the news that a child had died in immigration custody appears to be...

December 14, 2018

A federal court in Seattle on Tuesday permitted a case challenging unlawful delays in asylum screening interviews and bond hearings for asylum seekers to move forward over the government’s...

December 13, 2018
A federal district court in Seattle, Washington issued an order rejecting the government’s arguments that recent asylum seekers who enter the United States without immigration status are not entitled to constitutional protections.
December 12, 2018

In its battle against undocumented immigration, the Trump administration appears to be focused on looking tough rather than addressing real problems. Judging from the latest official statistics on...

December 5, 2018

There is a lot that we don’t know about immigration detention. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been in the headlines more often than in past years, the network of facilities...

December 5, 2018
A report on immigration detention examines the United States’ complex, sprawling network of facilities used to detain immigrants. The report, “The Landscape of Immigration Detention in the United States,” reveals that detained individuals were commonly held in facilities operated by private entities and located in remote areas, far away from basic community support structures and legal advocacy networks.