The administration attempted a mass deportation of unaccompanied minor children in the middle of the night during a holiday weekend, circumventing legal protections that require children to appear before an immigration judge. A federal judge halted the operation after being awakened at 2:35 AM, but one plane had already taken off before turning around.
On August 31, 2025 (Labor Day weekend), 76 unaccompanied Guatemalan children in US government custody were roused from their beds around 1:00 AM and put on three planes for deportation to Guatemala.
HHS began contacting shelter care providers around 10:00 PM Central time on August 30, ordering them to prepare children for immediate discharge. Children were shaken from sleep and told to pack their belongings.
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Updated March 25, 2026Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingActive litigation
An ICE directive and BIA precedential decision eliminated bond hearings for millions of immigrants, creating a system of indefinite detention without judicial review. 71.7% of the 57,861 ICE detainees had no criminal convictions.
On July 8, 2025, Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons issued a memo declaring that immigrants who entered without inspection are no longer eligible for bond hearings.
On September 5, 2025, the BIA ruled in Matter of Yajure Hurtado that immigration judges lack authority to conduct bond hearings for anyone present 'without admission' -- even those who have lived in the US for decades.
The US paid Rwanda, Ghana, Eswatini, and South Sudan to accept deportees who are not their nationals, in deals a federal judge ruled unconstitutional. HRW called the expulsion agreements violations of international human rights law, and domestic lawsuits in Ghana challenge the deal's legality.
Rwanda agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the US under a deal involving approximately $7.5 million in US financial support. Eswatini accepted up to 160 deportees for $5.1 million.
US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled the third-country deportation policy violates federal immigration law and migrants' constitutional right to due process.
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Updated March 25, 2026Deportation & Immigration
Serious Rights ViolationOngoingOfficial executive action
The rescission of the sensitive locations policy removed decades-old protections for churches, schools, hospitals, courthouses, and shelters from immigration enforcement. The change unleashed a dramatic surge in arrests of non-criminal immigrants and chilled access to essential services including healthcare and education.
On January 20, 2025, the Trump administration rescinded the DHS Protected Areas policy via executive order 'Protecting the American People Against Invasion,' removing protections for churches, schools, hospitals, courthouses, shelters, and childcare facilities from ICE operations.
Arrests of people with no criminal record surged 2,450% in Trump's first year — from 6% of ICE detainees in January 2025 to 41% by December 2025.
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Updated March 25, 2026Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingReported record
ICE deported 363 pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in 13 months and recorded 16 miscarriages in detention. Women were shackled while miscarrying, denied prenatal care, and subjected to invasive procedures without consent -- all in violation of ICE's own 2021 directive against detaining pregnant individuals.
363 pregnant, postpartum, and nursing immigrants were deported between January 1, 2025 and February 16, 2026.
16 miscarriages were recorded in ICE custody by late September 2025.
Immigration enforcement separated at least 11,000 US citizen children from their parents, with children held in government custody for an average of six months while officials used reunification processes as traps to arrest parents and caregivers.
At least 11,000 US citizen children had a parent detained by ICE in the first seven months of Trump's second term -- an average of more than 50 children per day.
Children in ICE detention jumped more than sixfold compared to the Biden administration, from ~25 per day to ~170 per day.
TPS was terminated or targeted for termination across 11 countries, de-documenting over 1 million people. Federal courts have blocked or paused several terminations. The State Department maintains 'Do Not Travel' advisories for many of the same countries DHS claims are safe for return.
1.6 million people lost their legal right to stay in the United States in 2025 across all TPS and parole terminations -- the largest mass de-documentation in US history.
TPS was terminated or targeted for 11 countries: Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Syria, Somalia, Myanmar, and Ethiopia.
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Updated February 28, 2026Deportation & Immigration
ICE Air conducted 2,253 deportation flights to 79 countries in one year -- a 46% increase over the Biden era -- including to 25 countries that had never received ICE flights. Domestic transfer flights surged 132%. Airlines increasingly concealed flight details from public tracking.
2,253 deportation flights to 79 countries from January 20, 2025 to January 20, 2026 -- a 46% increase in flights and 76% increase in destinations.
Removal flights included 25 countries that had never previously received ICE deportation flights.
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Updated February 2, 2026Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingJudicial finding
The US deported Haitians to a country the FAA banned US airlines from landing in due to gang gunfire, where 90% of the capital is under gang control and 1.4 million are displaced. DHS terminated TPS for 348,000 Haitians while the State Department maintained a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' advisory.
90% of Port-au-Prince is under gang control as of July 2025 according to the United Nations.
The FAA banned US airlines from landing at Port-au-Prince airport after deportation planes came under gang gunfire; flights were rerouted to Cap-Haitien.
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Updated February 1, 2026Deportation & Immigration
Serious Rights ViolationOngoingOfficial executive action
ICE conducted at least 40 workplace raids with over 1,100 arrests in seven months, including the largest single-site raid in DHS history at a Hyundai plant in Georgia (475 arrests). The raids triggered diplomatic incidents and devastated communities dependent on immigrant labor.
At least 40 publicly reported ICE worksite enforcement actions in the first seven months of the administration, resulting in over 1,100 arrests.
The Hyundai Metaplant raid in Ellabell, Georgia (September 4, 2025) was the largest single-site immigration raid in DHS history, with 475 arrests.
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Updated December 22, 2025Deportation & Immigration
ICE turned mandatory immigration court hearings into arrest traps, coordinating in real time with government attorneys to arrest immigrants whose cases were dismissed. Record-setting asylum denials, in absentia orders tripling to 50,000, and 'rocket dockets' processing cases too fast for legal representation destroyed systematic access to due process.
ICE agents arrested immigrants at mandatory immigration court hearings, using case dismissals as triggers for arrest in a coordinated 'deportation trap.'
Government attorneys and ICE officers coordinated in real time, with agents in hallways waiting to identify and arrest individuals whose cases were dismissed.
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Updated December 15, 2025Deportation & Immigration
The administration deported US military veterans including Purple Heart recipients wounded in combat, after replacing Biden-era protections that required ICE to consider military service. An estimated 94,000 non-citizen veterans face potential deportation.
An estimated 94,000 US military veterans lack citizenship, leaving them vulnerable to detention and deportation.
In April 2025, the Trump administration replaced Biden-era guidance requiring ICE to consider military service before arrests with a memo stating service alone 'doesn't automatically exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. law.'
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Updated November 10, 2025Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingReported record
10,500+ people subjected to solitary confinement in immigration detention over 14 months, with usage surging under the Trump administration. Nearly 75% of placements exceeded the UN's 15-day torture threshold. DHS oversight offices were simultaneously decimated from 150 to 22 staff.
Over 10,500 people were placed in solitary confinement in immigration detention centers between April 2024 and May 2025.
The monthly rate of solitary confinement use under the second Trump administration was twice the rate from 2018-2023 and more than six times higher than during the end of the Biden administration.
The administration indefinitely suspended refugee resettlement and set the lowest admissions cap in US history at 7,500, prioritizing white Afrikaners, while stranding refugees mid-transit including families who had sold their belongings for the journey.
Executive order on January 20, 2025 indefinitely suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program effective January 27.
The FY 2026 refugee cap was set at 7,500 -- the lowest in US history, down from 125,000 under Biden -- with priority given to white South African Afrikaners.
DHS Secretary Noem terminated Venezuela TPS, and the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect, de-documenting approximately 350,000 people and exposing them to removal to a country the State Department itself has characterized as unstable and dangerous.
DHS Secretary Noem terminated TPS for Venezuela under the 2023 designation on February 5, 2025.
Approximately 350,000 Venezuelans lost legal status and work authorization.
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Updated September 3, 2025Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingActive litigation
The administration invoked a rarely used 1798 wartime statute to justify accelerated removals of Venezuelan nationals, including transfers into El Salvador's detention system, prompting immediate litigation over both process and statutory scope.
The proclamation treated Tren de Aragua activity as an 'invasion' or 'predatory incursion' under the Alien Enemies Act.
The government used the proclamation to argue for removals with sharply reduced individualized process.
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Updated July 15, 2025Deportation & Immigration
Serious Rights ViolationOngoingOfficial executive action
The administration reinstated 'Remain in Mexico,' forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexican cities that the US State Department itself rates as 'Level 4: Do Not Travel' due to kidnapping and violence. MSF documented kidnapping rates as high as 75% among those returned under the policy.
DHS reinstated MPP on January 21, 2025, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexican border cities while their cases are processed in US immigration courts.
MSF documented that in one border city, 75% of MPP patients had been kidnapped while waiting in Mexico under the policy.
The administration imposed an unprecedented total ban on asylum claims at the southern border, shutting down the CBP One app and eliminating all avenues for protection. A federal judge ruled the president 'cannot adopt an alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.'
Executive order signed January 20, 2025 suspended all asylum processing at the southern border and shut down the CBP One scheduling app.
The order declared an 'invasion' at the southern border and invoked emergency powers to bypass statutory asylum protections.
DHS terminated humanitarian parole for 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, stripping legal status effective April 24, 2025. The Supreme Court allowed the mass revocation in a 7-2 ruling, and DHS urged affected individuals to 'self-deport immediately.'
Approximately 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela had been granted humanitarian parole under the CHNV programs established in 2022-2023.
DHS published a Federal Register notice on March 25, 2025 terminating all CHNV parole, with parole expiring April 24, 2025.
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Updated June 6, 2025Deportation & Immigration
Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law ConcernOngoingActive litigation
Federal officials removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite a preexisting withholding order barring that destination, then spent weeks litigating what it meant to 'facilitate' his return after the Supreme Court intervened.
An immigration judge had already barred Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador.
Public reporting said he was transferred into El Salvador's CECOT prison system.