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

September 20, 2017

U.S. immigration officials have a long history of overstepping the boundaries of their legal authority and violating the constitutional and other legal rights of migrants at the Southwest border....

September 18, 2017

The Trump administration has repeatedly called for increased security along the United States southern border with Mexico, but a new report released earlier this month from the Department of...

September 14, 2017

Following through on a directive from President Trump made during his first week in office, the State Department on Monday invoked a rarely-used law to impose visa restrictions on Cambodia,...

September 13, 2017

This week House Republicans are set to vote on yet another anti-immigrant bill that attempts to scapegoat immigrants and grant far reaching enforcement powers to the Department of Homeland...

September 1, 2017

The State of Illinois has taken steps to push back on the Trump Administration’s efforts to force local law enforcement into doing the job of federal immigration enforcement officers. Governor...

August 31, 2017

Texas’ Senate Bill 4 (SB4), the state’s punitive, anti-immigrant law slated to go into effect on September 1, was largely blocked by a Texas Judge late Wednesday evening. SB4 was passed into law...

August 30, 2017

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly begun targeting undocumented parents and guardians who allegedly paid human smugglers to bring their children to the United States to...

August 24, 2017

The Administration’s efforts to massively expand immigration detention in the United States are already evident in Texas, where a for-profit prison company is building the largest complex in the...

August 22, 2017

Racial profiling often runs rampant in communities that have mobilized their law enforcement officers to act as immigration officials, with the Hispanic community frequently faring the worst. A...

August 21, 2017

Nothing is a better predictor of an immigrant’s success in their immigration case, than whether or not they have access to competent legal assistance. However, the U.S. Government has at times...

December 4, 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—the agency responsible for systematically separating thousands of migrant families in the summer of 2018—lacked the technology or mechanisms to record and...

December 2, 2019

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently published an update to its National Detention Standards (NDS), which govern the treatment of people held in facilities that rent some of...

November 25, 2019

Over the last decade, the remains of more than 1,600 people have been found in the Arizona desert. Groups like No More Deaths, whose mission is “ending death and suffering in the U.S.-Mexico...

November 20, 2019

In yet another major blow to America’s asylum system, on Wednesday the Trump administration reportedly began sending some asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador to Guatemala rather than...

November 20, 2019
The Trump administration published a new rule that seeks to implement safe third country agreements that the United States entered into with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—and bar many individuals seeking protection in the United States from being able to apply for asylum.
November 19, 2019

The Trump administration is preparing to seize private land in Texas to continue construction of the president’s long-promised border wall. According to government officials familiar with the...

November 18, 2019

Nearly 60,000 people seeking asylum in the United States have been returned to Mexico to wait for their U.S. court hearings under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the Remain...

November 15, 2019

A federal court ruled this week that sweeping policies permitting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to search personal cell phones,...

November 6, 2019

It’s been nearly a year since the Trump administration announced the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or the “Remain in Mexico” program. This program forces vulnerable asylum seekers to return...

October 28, 2019

The Trump administration began a secretive new asylum process in El Paso, Texas that came to light late last week. It seeks to deter asylum seekers from coming to the United States and to remove...