SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
immigration
Austin Man Shot by ICE Facing Paralysis After Being Refused Medical Care
"This isn't law enforcement," said US Senate candidate James Talarico. "It's lawlessness."
Sep 22, 2026
Democrats in Congress on Monday evening were demanding a full, independent investigation into US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's shooting on Sunday of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, as it was reported that he had been held in an ICE detention center with a bullet still lodged in his back—close to his spine—and that he was finally being taken to a hospital only after he lost feeling in the left side of his body.
In a video posted on social media, US Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) recounted how Perez was initially hospitalized after ICE agents in an unmarked SUV sideswiped his car as he was making DoorDash deliveries in Austin, Texas, and then shot him through his windshield as he was trying to pull over.
But "only a few hours after being shot, he was forced out of the hospital," said Castro, "and sent over to what is known as STIPC, in Pearsall, Texas, along I-35, the South Texas ICE Processing Center."
Castro and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) spent Monday attempting to gain permission to visit with Perez and raising alarm over the fact that ICE's bullet had not been removed from his back before he was taken to STIPC, where he was reportedly forced to sleep on a floor.
"He reported that he's in incredible pain, that he'd not been given any medication," said Castro. "It's basically abuse that you would take somebody who has been shot and move them from a hospital to a prison, that kind of prison, within a matter of hours, and then also, it looks like, start the process to deport them immediately."
Update on the condition of Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez at the South Texas Ice Processing Center. He’s being taken to the hospital. He is in tremendous pain and tells us that the bullet is still inside his left side. He can’t move the left side of his body. pic.twitter.com/SWquC2AOrj
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) September 21, 2026
Perez entered the country two years agoafter using the CBP One application to set up an appointment with immigration agents. The app was introduced by the Biden administration, but President Donald Trump abruptly terminated it immediately after he took office last year. Perez was permitted to enter the country, applied for asylum, and received a work permit.
As Common Dreams reported Monday, Perez's lawyer, Kate Goldfinch-Lincoln, and his wife were unable to make contact with him when he was first taken from the hospital on Sunday.
After Perez briefly called in from the detention center to a press conference held by Goldfinch-Lincoln on Monday, she said she received a call from another detainee who told her "that officers came in and handled Wilber roughly."
"According to this detainee, Wilber then lost feeling on the left side of his body, including his arm and leg," she said. "Wilber has a bullet lodged near his spine. I was told that he was handcuffed, shackled at the feet, placed in a waist chain, and taken to a hospital. I am waiting to find out how he is doing and what his current condition is. We need answers. We need to know that Wilber is safe and receiving appropriate medical care. So far, he has not."
In response to the update on Perez's condition, Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico said: "This isn't law enforcement. It's lawlessness."
Casar called Perez's transfer back to the hospital "a positive first step," and credited immigrant rights advocates and community members for "speaking up."
"Now, we have to make sure he fully recovers, is reunited with his family, and gets to tell law enforcement the full story of how he was shot in the back by ICE," said Casar.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) were among the lawmakers calling for a full investigation into the shooting and ICE's treatment of Perez.
"This is absolutely horrific," said Frost. "ICE must be stopped. Their regime of cruelty will continue until they are held accountable."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Huge Blow' to 'Lawless' Practices of Trump DHS as Court Orders End to Warrantless Construction Site Raids
"By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law."
Sep 21, 2026
A federal judge on Monday handed down a decision in a case brought by US citizen Leo Garcia Venegas, who was detained three times in the Trump administration's immigration raids at construction sites—but the court's order, said advocates, will protect workers across the country from federal agents' warrantless, violent raids.
Chief US District Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock in the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama temporarily blocked Department of Homeland Security officers from conducting raids at construction sites. He issued stays on three DHS policies while Venegas' case proceeds and said agents had likely violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
The three practices Beaverstock blocked include DHS' warrantless entry policy; its preemptive detention policy, which allows agents to detain a person simply based on suspicion, even without evidence, that they are an undocumented immigrant; and its continued detention policy, which permits officers to hold a person even after they show evidence of citizenship or lawful presence in the US.
Those policies have resulted in three arrests of Venegas since the spring of 2025, including one instance in which masked officers followed him home from the construction site where he worked, ripped him from his car, tackled him to the ground, and handcuffed and shackled him—all while he was trying to show them his REAL ID to prove his citizenship.
“They can suddenly show up and detain you without having done anything,” Venegas testified in May. “Now I don’t feel free to drive, to go to work, or go to the store.”
The Institute of Justice, which is representing Venegas, noted that the Trump administration has urged all Americans to get their REAL ID cards—which, in most states, have a symbol like a star on them to comply with new rules—and Venegas' state of Alabama issues the cards only to citizens or those who are lawfully present. Yet a DHS official testified in Venegas' case that REAL ID cards do not prove that someone is authorized to be in the US.
"Venegas was not promptly released following the production of his REAL ID to officers. Instead, the officers disregarded the veracity of his documentation and continued to detain him," reads the court order. "A policy that permits such action is likely to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment."
In the ruling, Beaverstock also noted that DHS last year had claimed Venegas tried to interfere with officers when he was first detained in May 2025—something that video of the arrest did not support.
DHS also claimed that the agency treats construction sites as "open fields" where agents do not need a warrant or even a reason to search the premises and make arrests—but Venegas works in closed construction sites that are posted with "No Trespassing" signs, and was working inside a house that was in the finishing stages of being built when he was arrested for a second time last June.
"Agents walked inside a house where Leo was working, surrounded him, and ordered him to follow them," said the Institute for Justice last year when Venegas sued the Trump administration. "Again, Leo produced his REAL ID. Again, the agents refused to accept it. They marched him out of the development and detained him alongside other workers they had grabbed—only releasing him (and other lawful residents) 20 minutes later after confirming his citizenship."
Beaverstock wrote that "the government has not convinced this court that the warrantless entry into a structure—which undisputedly occurred during the June encounter—does not implicate the Fourth Amendment."
Jared McClain, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, called the judge's decision "a huge blow to DHS’ lawless enforcement practices."
“The government stood up in court and argued that they don’t need warrants to enter private construction sites and round up all the workers, and that they can’t trust government-issued IDs," said McClain. "By setting aside those unconstitutional policies, the court has restored the rule of law. Construction workers like Leo can finally go to work in peace again.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
ICE Denounced for Enacting 'Official Government Policy of Disappearing People'
"Hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional," said one expert.
Sep 21, 2026
Critics reacted with horror to a Monday report from The Associated Press detailing how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has abruptly ended its practice of disclosing the locations of thousands of detainees.
According to the AP, ICE "has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding... detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them."
Immigration attorneys who spoke with the AP said that their clients had "vanished" from the system after ICE removed them from its online detainee locator system last week.
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the AP that families of detainees "are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don’t know where the person might be."
Chen added that the new policy has "serious implications" for attorneys' ability to make contact with their clients.
Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project, told the AP that the new policy is "just another iteration of disappearing people."
"Why would we do that in the United States of America?" Mendez asked. "It's something we’d hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process."
Tom Jawetz, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, echoed Mendez's analysis, writing in a social media post that the AP report reveals "an official government policy of disappearing people," as "systems for attorneys and loved ones to know where—even whether—a person with a final removal order is in ICE custody have been wiped clean."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, described the new ICE policy as "unprecedented" for US immigration enforcement.
"People who have been detained for months are suddenly disappearing from the locator system—even if they haven't been moved anywhere," Reichlin-Melnick explained. "And people newly arrested are not showing up at all, their location now hidden from view."
Georgetown University political scientist Jonathan Ladd argued that the ICE policy was a fundamental violation of long-established rights in the US that date to before the country's official founding.
"The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights," Ladd explained. "This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679."
Ladd further pointed out that "habeas corpus rights are guaranteed by Article I of our Constitution," which means "hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional."
Journalist Gillian Brockell observed that the new ICE policy "will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal."
Among those sharing the AP report on social media was Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an attorney for Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan shot by ICE in Austin, Texas on Sunday.
Initially, she and the immigrant's wife could not make contact with him, because ICE moved him from the hospital "to an undisclosed location," but Lincoln-Goldfinch said Monday afternoon that her client "is being held at Pearsall for interrogation."
"We got Wilber on the phone live from detention at the press conference," the attorney added. "He says he still has the bullet lodged in his shoulder. He says he is not doing well and has not received the medical care he needs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Violence Cannot Continue': ICE Shooting of Man in Austin Sparks Outrage
"ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long," said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar, who represents the district where the shooting occurred.
Sep 20, 2026
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and wounded a man in Austin, Texas on Sunday, prompting demands for an independent investigation and renewed calls from progressive lawmakers and activists to abolish ICE amid the Trump administration's deadly immigration crackdown.
Local ABC affiliate KVUE reported that the shooting occurred in the 7000 block of West Anderson Lane, near the intersection of Research Boulevard and Anderson Square. An unidentified man was taken to a hospital. His condition was initially unclear; the Austin American-Statesman later reported that he was alert and talking.
The circumstances leading to the shooting are under investigation.
Independent journalist Emiliano Tahui Gómez spoke with two witnesses.
"Nedevia Bolaños and her husband, Carlos, own a business just off the intersection where the shooting happened," Gómez reported on social media. "Shortly before 1 pm they say they heard what sounded like two gunshots. Carlos ran out first. A blue Toyota sedan and a black Escalade were stopped under the highway."
Carlos said he saw a man who looked like he was in his 30s "leaning backwards against his seat. A masked agent was standing outside the car. The agent refused to answer questions. Within a few minutes, as many as 10 other ICE agents arrived."
Gómez continued:
Carlos asked the victim if he was ok. “Yes,” the man said in Spanish, but he looked exhausted. Carlos asked why they had shot him. “Because I didn’t stop.”
Bolaños ran up next. She said she continuously asked the ICE agents about why they’d shot him and if they were going to render aid. They didn’t answer her. It was an [Austin Police Department] officer who later arrived and cut open the young man's shirt, revealing a deep hole between his shoulder blades.
The ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after and carried him off.
“I’ve never seen all this. Thank God I’m a citizen,” Bolaños said in Spanish. “Or I’d be living like this. In a dream of terror.”
CBS Austin reporter Vinny Martorano said on social media that Austin City Councilman Mike Siegel told him that "an ICE agent, who is well-known in the city’s Latino community, sideswiped the man’s car. Then the officer got out and shot the driver five times through the windshield."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas)—who represents the district where the shooting occurred—said on social media that "the horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning."
"As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law," he continued. "Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened. We can see the lies with our own eyes. We will demand truth, transparency, and accountability."
"Just like Americans have from Minneapolis to Houston, Austinites will speak out peacefully against this deadly mass deportation machine," Casar added. "ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long. We will not be silent."
Breaking: ICE shot and injured a man in Austin, Texas, earlier today. Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time.I am demanding the body camera footage and full accountability.
[image or embed]
— Joaquin Castro (@joaquincastrotx.bsky.social) September 20, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said at a press conference: "I'm very angry about this. I'm extremely unhappy. A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly when it's ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry about it."
"And while I'm unhappy and I'm angry about it, I'm not surprised at all," he added. "It's happened in other cities with the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days and the chaos that we see it performing and fomenting. There's no reason for us to be surprised by it."
Texas state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-47), who is running for lieutenant governor, said that "this violence cannot continue."
Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) contended that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "remains the biggest threat to our collective safety."
"This weekend, after abusing and hurting peaceful protesters in Illinois, they have just shot another person in Austin, Texas," she added. "The pattern is clear. The agency can't be reformed. I’ve heard the community: I am ready to melt ICE and dismantle DHS! My colleagues in Congress should be too."
Sunday's shooting came 10 weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican man, in Houston. Salgado's death followed a series of shootings involving federal immigration agents, including the January killing of US citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
A letter sent in July by Democratic lawmakers to DHS officials noted that agents had shot at least 22 people since President Donald Trump's return to office, with six of those shootings fatal. The lawmakers said that in multiple cases, federal authorities had made allegations against shooting victims that were later contradicted by evidence.
More than 50 people have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Omar Introduces Bill to 'Make ICE Pay' for Destruction to US Cities
"Our bill will force ICE to pay the price for the damage they’ve left in their wake and ensure that these devastating operations can never be repeated," said the Minneapolis congresswoman.
Sep 17, 2026
On January 10, days after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot US citizen and mother of three Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, US Rep. Ilhan Omar stood in the bitter cold of her home city, surrounded by a crowd of angry residents who'd taken to the streets.
It was just over a month into the Trump administration's "Operation Metro Surge"—a campaign that would come to be marked by the staggering scale of racial profiling that led to the arrests of US citizens, brazen defiance of court orders, and stunning displays of force, including two more shootings, one of them fatal.
Of the thousands of armed and masked agents who'd arrived to inflict terror upon the Twin Cities, Omar (D-Minn.) declared, "We are going to make sure that these people pay for what they have done to us." A cheer erupted from the crowd.
On Thursday, Omar introduced a piece of legislation aimed at fulfilling that promise. Titled the Make ICE Pay Act, the bill would block the roughly $140 billion allocated to immigration enforcement in last year's massive Republican budget law and redirect it to recovery efforts in communities reeling from ICE sieges.
"For over a year, ICE has been tearing through our nation, leading racist terror campaigns that have caused devastating damage to our cities, to our businesses, and to the lives of our constituents," Omar said.
"In Minneapolis, Operation Metro Surge cost our community nearly $700 million," she said, citing an estimate by the city of Minneapolis. "We have a moral responsibility to end this abuse of power. Our bill will force ICE to pay the price for the damage they’ve left in their wake and ensure that these devastating operations can never be repeated."
The Trump administration has used this funding to construct an enormous network of detention camps that have often held people in squalid conditions without contact with their loved ones or lawyers and to launch a hiring blitz that has swelled the agency's ranks with poorly vetted recruits, some of whom have gone on to commit deadly abuses of their newfound power.
It has also been used to supercharge ICE's footprint nationwide. With 51,000 arrests, August was the third consecutive month in which the agency set detention records.
And more than ever, the agency has gone after immigrants without criminal records, as well as asylum seekers, green card and visa holders, and Haitian and Syrian immigrants the administration abruptly stripped of Temporary Protected Status.
Through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Omar's bill would redirect this funding to states and cities on the receiving end of ICE abuses.
It would be used to provide them with economic relief, reimburse them for extra costs and lost economic activity resulting from raids, support schools and colleges that were disrupted, and provide mental health and social support to those affected.
Funds could also be allocated to support record-keeping and investigations into immigration agencies' conduct and to commissions that allow members of the public to testify about their experiences.
In addition to Minnesota, Omar's bill identifies several other localities that would be eligible for funding after being besieged by ICE, including California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, and Oregon, where numerous incidents of misconduct have also been documented.
The legislation is co-sponsored by Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.), and Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.).
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Admin Jailing 'Random Somali Immigrants With No Criminal Record' at Guantánamo
“Nobody tell us that we’re going to Guantánamo Bay,” said one victim. “Just like kidnapping.”
Sep 17, 2026
Anger is growing this week as more details emerge about the Trump administration's detention of Somali immigrants at Guantánamo Bay, including people with no criminal records and, in at least one case, a legal US resident.
At least eight Somali men are being held at the notorious US military base in Cuba, while as many as 12 Somali deportees have passed through the facility in recent weeks, according to Sahan Journal. Seven of those still there are being held at Camp 6, which was originally opened under the George W. Bush administration during the so-called War on Terror to imprison men and at least one child in a facility rife with torture and other abuse.
“I never expected to be arrested in a prison established for the terrorists who I fled from,” 31-year-old Hassan Abdi Abtidoon told Sahan Journal's Mohamud Farah on Tuesday.
Among the other Somalis held at Guantánamo is 31-year-old Adam Abdullah, a St. Paul, Minnesota, resident who came to the United States as a legal asylum seeker in 2023. Abdullah had a work permit and Social Security number, operated an auto repair business, and had no criminal record, according to Minnesota court records. His past involvement with law enforcement appeared to include nothing more than two parking tickets.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Abdullah in December during the Trump administration's deadly Operation Metro Surge campaign, which targeted Minnesota's large Somali community amid widespread racist demonization and dehumanization by Republicans, including President Donald Trump.
After months of detention in Minnesota, Kentucky, and Louisiana, Abdullah said officials told him he was being deported to Somalia.
"From Miami, they say, 'OK, now we go to Somalia. Then, first we go to Cuba for refueling, and then we go to some other countries to Somalia,'" Abdullah told Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) earlier this month.
The flight never left Cuba. Abdullah was taken to Camp 6, where he has remained.
Another Somali detainee, Sakariye Abdi Mohamed, described Camp 6 as "the worst place ever I've been in my life."
Mother Jones reported Wednesday that Mohamed was one of 12 Somali men forced onto a plane last month by ICE agents, who told them they were being deported to Somalia.
"Nobody tell us that we're going to Guantánamo Bay," Mohamed said. "Just like kidnapping."
This is APPALLING. The Trump administration is detaining multiple random Somali immigrants with no criminal record at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly because the White House ordered ICE specifically to detain Somalis at Gitmo as part of its effort to punish an ethnic group Trump has attacked.
[image or embed]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) September 16, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Seven or eight of the men reportedly remain at Guantánamo, where some of them have described being shackled and subjected to frigid temperatures. Detainees also said they are subjected to constant surveillance, including cameras inside bathrooms.
The US Department of Homeland Security claimed the flight included "some of the worst of the worst" with criminal histories including assault, weapons offenses, robbery, theft, drug charges, and drunken driving.
However, Sahan Journal reported that the attorney for six of the eight detainees had found that all had final deportation orders but no additional criminal charges. Four were recent asylum seekers, and two had lived in the United States for decades.
“The administration says we send the worst of the worst to Guantánamo,” US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told MPR Wednesday. “Yet in the case of Mr. Abdullah, there has been no evidence presented about what he has done, no explanation for why he has been detained. I mean, there is really has been no due process.”
The Trump administration's use of Guantánamo for immigration detention is not unprecedented. The facility—which experts have placed within the centuries-long story of American concentration camps—has a long history as an offshore immigration detention site that predates the post-9/11 military prison camp.
During the George H.W. Bush administration, thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing political violence were intercepted at sea and taken to Guantánamo. The Clinton administration continued the policy and, at its peak in 1994, roughly 14,300 Haitians were held there. Clinton officials subsequently used Guantánamo for Cuban migrants, more than 30,000 of whom were jailed at the base.
The treatment of Somali immigrants at Guantánamo has also drawn renewed criticism regarding who has and has not been targeted for deportation from the United States.
Human rights activist Suleiman Bolaleh, who has documented atrocities committed under former US-backed Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre, noted in a recent social media post that Somali immigrants with no criminal records are being rounded up and sent to Guantánamo, while members of the former dictatorship's ruling family and senior figures have lived in the United States.
"Men once positioned at the heart of a regime accused of mass killings, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing continue to reside openly in American communities," Bolaleh wrote. "The contrast is jarring: An immigrant [who] has no criminal record is detained at Guantánamo, while figures tied to that dictatorship’s violent apparatus remain unexamined and unaccountable."
Multiple legal challenges to the Trump administration's use of Guantánamo Bay for immigrant detention have been launched.
Meanwhile, the longstanding habeas litigation involving War on Terror detainees at Guantánamo continues. In May, Somali national Guled Hassan Duran—who has been held at Guantánamo since 2006 without being charged—asked a federal court to order his release after years of inaction on his habeas petition.
Duran was approved for release by senior US officials in 2021, but remains imprisoned at Guantánamo along with 14 other men—none of whom has ever been convicted of any terrorism-related crimes. Former Bush administration and US military officials have said that most of the men and boys who were ever imprisoned at Guantánamo were innocent, and that senior administration officials knew it but kept them locked up for political purposes.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Report Details How Trump Mass Deportation Agenda Is Fueling US Affordability Crisis
"When ICE continuously raids a community, everyone pays for it—in lost jobs, higher prices, and damaged businesses," said an advocate at the ACLU.
Sep 16, 2026
The Trump administration has billed its "mass deportation" agenda as a necessity to bring about an age of prosperity for US-born workers. But a new report suggests it's actually doing the opposite—exacerbating an already severe affordability crisis by suppressing wages, killing jobs, and raising costs.
On Wednesday, the ACLU and AFL-CIO published an analysis examining how the administration's unprecedented deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to communities around the country has not only created a climate of fear, but also caused labor shortages, reduced economic activity, and given employers new tools to suppress employees' wages.
"When ICE continuously raids a community, everyone pays for it—in lost jobs, higher prices, and damaged businesses," said Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU's equality division.
Previous national data has already shown that, contrary to the Trump administration's argument that rounding up immigrant laborers simply creates room for those born in the US, areas that have experienced increases in ICE activity have also seen employment reductions for US-born workers.
"In our interdependent labor market, harm to one group of workers spills over to all those who labor alongside them or within the same supply chain, regardless of immigration status. Roughly 1 in 5 workers in our country is an immigrant, spanning all sectors of the economy," the report explains.
"Targeting this large and vital segment of the workforce sharply reduces the supply of labor, threatening the ability of employers to generate revenue and cover business expenses, including the wages of any remaining workers," it continues.
Reducing the labor supply consequently reduces production. The report argues that this is why industries with large numbers of immigrant laborers have seen skyrocketing costs for their products nationwide.
Data from previous deportation surges during the Obama administration shows that immigration enforcement has reduced construction labor, resulting in nearly 2,000 fewer completed homes on average and an 18% increase in home prices.
In June 2026, data showed that while core inflation was just 2.6% over the previous year, prices had shot up much more dramatically in immigrant-heavy sectors: The cost of lettuce was up 32.1%, landscaping was up 10.8%, home health care climbed 10.7%, whole milk increased 9%, and canned fruit jumped 7.9%.
The report also argues that ICE surges, which have often involved racial profiling and indiscriminate targeting, use of excessive force, and arrests of US citizens, have created terror in communities that suppresses economic activity.
A May working paper from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, which examined nearly 5,400 raids around the country during 2025, showed that areas targeted by ICE raids experienced a 2.7% decline in foot traffic and a 6.2% decline in spending per business per week, which the author extrapolated would amount to 8.1 billion fewer visits and as much as $14 billion in forgone spending annually across the nation.
US-born employees in sectors with large numbers of immigrant workers were hit especially hard. Data from "Operation Metro Surge" in Minnesota earlier this year demonstrates this in miniature.
Research released in June by the Upjohn Institute estimated that the surge of immigration agents cost the state’s leisure-and-hospitality sector 4,600 jobs, 3.8 million work hours, and $71 million in wages between January and March.
Economist Exequiel Hernandez, quoted in the ACLU/AFL-CIO report, said these findings highlight the danger of creating an "economy of fear."
"If fewer people are showing up to work, they’re making less income, they’re spending less," he explained. "If they’re spending less, businesses have to cut back in hiring and selling, and it’s really quite damaging."
The report cites projections from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) last year on what this could mean if the Trump administration meets its target of deporting 1 million people per year.
Using data from previous immigration enforcement studies, the EPI estimated that nearly 6 million fewer people could be employed by the end of President Donald Trump's second term if the administration follows through on its deportation promises. That includes 3.3 million immigrants, but also 2.6 million US-born workers, many of whom are working in immigrant-heavy sectors.
The report argues that a pathway to citizenship rather than deportation would not only be a more humane solution, but also deliver economic benefits that ripple through the economy, including for US-born residents.
It cites projections that allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens would increase US gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly $2 trillion over a decade and generate hundreds of billions in new tax revenue.
This is because legalization would allow workers to move into jobs that better match their skills rather than being confined to low-paying jobs that tend to accept them. It would also remove immigration enforcement as a threat that employers could use to suppress wages, both for immigrant and US-born workers.
"Working people are paying the price for an immigration system that is destabilizing entire industries and communities and making it easier to exploit workers,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. “As this report demonstrates, a broad pathway to citizenship for all would raise wages, create more and better jobs, and strengthen our economy in ways that help all of us."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mahmoud Khalil Leads Suit Against Columbia for 'Systemic Discrimination' Against Palestinian Students
"We are suing because no student should ever have to go through the hell Columbia put us through all these years."
Sep 15, 2026
Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and other Palestine defenders sued the Ivy League institution in federal court on Monday over what Khalil called "gross and systemic discrimination against Palestinian students."
After helping lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, Khalil was forcefully arrested by federal immigration officials at his New York City apartment building in March 2025, despite being a lawful permanent resident married to an American. The Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent was detained at various facilities for more than 100 days, missing the birth of his son.
Khalil—one of several university students targeted by the administration since President Donald Trump returned to power last year—has been involved in a series of legal battles since, including his ongoing fight against deportation. The new suit was filed in the Southern District of New York by him, a student group he led, and the organization's current president, Mohammad Ibrahim Zubairi.
The organization, the Palestine Working Group, was indefinitely suspended from campus last September. The complaint explains that since PWG was formed "at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in 2018, its members have been antagonized and harassed without consequence because of their vocal support of Palestine, perceived shared Arab and/or Muslim ancestry, and status as non-citizens and/or immigrants."
After the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which has been followed by Israeli forces' continued genocidal violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, "on-campus harassment and hostility directed towards PWG, its members, and other similarly situated students escalated to an extreme level," according to the suit.
The filing also says that "defendants' deliberate indifference towards this harassment enabled the coordinated, persistent doxxing of multiple PWG members, and directly led to Mr. Khalil's March 8, 2025, illegal detainment and attempted deportation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Khalil wrote on social media that "we are suing because no student should ever have to go through the hell Columbia put us through all these years," and suggested there is more to come, pledging that "next, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured."
The defendants in this case include not only Columbia University and its trustees, but also SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, whom the plaintiffs accuse of using her role "to take several actions that caused the on-campus harassment of and hostility towards Muslim and/or Arab, outwardly pro-Palestine students to notably worsen."
University spokesperson Samantha Slater declined to comment on the litigation, but gave a general statement to the campus newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, and various other outlets.
"Creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported, and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university. It is also a responsibility we take seriously," Slater said. "Columbia is committed to protecting our community from discrimination and harassment, and responding promptly and appropriately when concerns arise."
The lawsuit argues that the defendants violated contractual obligations along with multiple laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and seeks injunctive relief. In addition to ending "discriminatory policies, practices, procedures, or protocols," PWG and its members want the group allowed back on campus, plus monetary damages.
According to the Spectator, dozens of people gathered at the university's gates for a Monday press conference during which Khalil, Zubairi, and their attorneys Brittany Finley and William Reynolds announced the suit.
"Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students," said Khalil. "For over two years, we pleaded with Columbia. Columbia did not care."
"Our safety and well-being did not serve the ideological project its board of trustees was protecting," he declared—as The Intercept reported Monday that, based on tax filings, as the university "ramped up its crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters over the past three years, the Ivy League institution was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Israel groups," and "gave little or no such funds to pro-Palestine, Arab, or Muslim groups over the same period."
While a spokesperson for the school said that "these grants did not come from Columbia's operating funds and were payments distributed from a donor-advised fund established" in accordance with federal rules, Joseph Howley, a Jewish associate professor of classics at the university, said that "it confirms our worst suspicions since fall of 2023 that pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian politics are the official policy of this institution."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Treasury Would Strip Tax Refunds From Hundreds of Thousands of American Kids, Researchers Warn
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities experts said the move “would harm people who are immigrants and their families, including many US citizen children, who are critical to the nation’s future prosperity.”
Sep 14, 2026
Hundreds of thousands of US citizen children could lose access to key benefits as part of a Trump administration proposal to strip tax credit refunds away from immigrant families, including those with legal status.
In August, the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed rules redefining four tax credits—the adoption tax credit, child tax credit (CTC), American opportunity tax credit, and earned income tax credit (EITC)—as "federal public benefits" under a decades-old welfare reform law, meaning that certain groups of noncitizens, not considered "qualified aliens," would be ineligible to claim refunds from them.
Among them are undocumented immigrants, but also many people with temporary nonimmigrant visas, as well as holders of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
According to the Treasury and IRS, the average refunded benefit among all taxpayers whose claims contain at least one of the affected credits is $3,656.
Reporting on the proposal last month, CNBC described it as an effort to "use the nation’s financial safety net as a way to implement stricter immigration policy" and noted that low-income recipients, who are less likely to have large income tax bills to refund, would be hit the hardest.
In a policy brief published on Monday, a group of experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)—director of federal tax policy Kris Cox, vice president for immigration policy Shelby Gonzales, deputy director of federal tax policy Samantha Jacoby, and senior research analyst Claire Zippel—examined the likely effects of the policy.
They estimated that the proposal would take away access to the refundable portion of the CTC and/or the EITC for 1 million people in affected families, including US citizens and people with lawful immigration statuses.
While the proposed rule estimates that between 200,000 and 700,000 taxpayers would become ineligible, the researchers said this understated the potential impact because it only included the tax filers themselves, without noting that their family members would also be hurt.
Using immigration status data from the Department of Homeland Security, the researchers said they determined that "the rule would take access to refundable credits away from hundreds of thousands of US citizen children if both parents—or their parent, for single-parent families—have an immigration status that is not a 'qualified' status."
"For 30 years, no administration, Democratic or Republican, has treated refundable tax credits this way," the researchers said. "The proposed rule includes a misguided reinterpretation of a 1996 law that created restrictive immigration-related eligibility standards for 'federal public benefits,' taking away access to basic needs programs from many immigrants with lawful statuses."
"The Trump administration is seeking to apply those same immigration-related restrictions—which require people to have a 'qualified' immigration status—to the refunded portion of certain tax credits," they continued. "This contradicts both the clear reading of the statutory text and congressional intent, which Congress has demonstrated by legislating on immigrant eligibility for tax credits several times since the 1996 law, most recently in 2025."
They noted that the new policy follows other efforts by the administration to restrict access to other programs for families with immigrants, including Head Start, child welfare services, and health services, all of which are being challenged in court.
Many of the people who'd be barred from receiving the credit refunds, the researchers said, are especially vulnerable, including:
- Children granted special immigrant juvenile status, who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by one or both parents;
- Survivors of serious criminal activity who have cooperated with law enforcement;
- People with DACA and TPS; and
- Many others who are living and working lawfully in the United States.
"Taking away these tax credits would harm people who are immigrants and their families, including many US citizen children, who are critical to the nation’s future prosperity," the researchers said, pointing to studies linking additional income from tax credits with improved health, education, employment, and earnings."
"People who are immigrants and their families contribute to our communities and nation in immeasurable ways," they concluded. "These restrictions on tax credits create a higher effective tax rate for people who are filing their taxes solely based on their immigration status."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Texas Landowners Challenge 'Legally and Factually Unsound' Trump Rationale for Big Bend Border Barrier
"We have brought this extraordinary challenge because, for us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on a map. It is our home."
Sep 14, 2026
A coalition of Texas ranchers, landowners, business owners, and conservationists in the Big Bend region on Monday sued the Trump administration over plans to build border barriers and other destructive infrastructure across one of the most remote and environmentally sensitive stretches of the US-Mexico border.
The lawsuit—filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia by Conserve Big Bend and six landowners with the backing of many others—challenges the administration’s determination that the region is an area of “high illegal entry" under Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, a finding the plaintiffs say is contradicted by the government’s own statistics.
"That high illegal entry determination is the legal predicate for defendants’ invocation of extraordinary power to immediately construct a 30-foot-high border wall while bypassing all federal, state, and local procedural protections," the complaint states. "That determination is legally and factually unsound and unsupported."
"A host of government statistics and other public reporting [show] that the opposite is true," the lawsuit notes. "The Big Bend sector is the area of the lowest illegal entry along the southwest border... The Big Bend sector has recorded the fewest yearly apprehensions of any Southwest sector for the last 53 years, with last year’s numbers being the lowest yearly apprehension total recorded by any sector in the region since 1967."
The suit comes as the Trump administration presses forward with a $46 billion border security construction program authorized by Congress, including 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and other surveillance infrastructure.
The plaintiffs argue that the administration is abusing the extraordinary authority granted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the IIRIRA, to sidestep laws protecting wildlife, water, Indigenous rights, historic resources, and private property.
“Thank you, President Trump. You’ve secured the border. But now let it go. It’s time," Laura Allen said at a Monday press conference in Marfa announcing the lawsuit. A former Val Verde County judge and two-time Trump voter, Allen's family owns a ranch that would be divided by the proposed border barrier.
David Keller, an archaeologist and historian who lives in the region, spoke at the press conference. He accused officials supporting the administration's proposal of being "woefully unprepared for the hornet’s nest they stirred up because they had no idea how much we love this place."
“For us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on the map,” Keller stressed. “It is our home.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration waived dozens of environmental laws—including the National Park Service Organic Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—to expedite the construction of border roads and barriers through Big Bend National Park.
This isn't the first court challenge to the administration's Big Bend border barrier plans. Last month, the Presidio Municipal Development District sued to stop construction, citing alleged violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act. But after DHS added that law to its waiver, US District Judge Reggie Walton—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—ruled that the plaintiffs could not prevail on the merits and declined to block construction plans, declaring that the administration was legally allowed to bypass the legislation.
“Under federal statute, the secretary of homeland security is granted extraordinary, expedited powers to construct border barriers and sweep aside dozens of federal protections, environmental laws, and ordinary due process,” Clara Bensen, a board member with Conserve Big Bend and head of communications for the No Big Bend Wall initiative, said in a statement Monday. “But Congress explicitly set a strict legal prerequisite for that extraordinary power: it can only be invoked in designated areas of ‘high illegal entry.’”
"The government’s own official statistics tell the real story," Bensen added. "You cannot legally bypass the laws of this country by fabricating an emergency that does not exist. Declaring over 500 miles of steep cliff faces and perilously rugged desert an area of ‘high illegal entry’ is not just detached from reality, under federal law, it is arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”
Also last month, People of La Junta for Preservation—a Native American advocacy group focused on protecting Indigenous historical and cultural sites in the Big Bend region—sued the administration, arguing that construction threatens sacred sites of the Lipan Apache people. The complaint also challenges DHS' authority to conduct work inside Big Bend National Park.
Amid intense opposition spanning the political spectrum, US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott last month announced a temporary pause on construction in Big Bend National Park pending an “on-the-ground evaluation."
Some conservatives who oppose the administration's plans have cited the inviolability of private property rights, which Lico Miller, whose land is in the path of the border barrier, called "the bedrock of Texas sovereignty" during Monday's press conference.
“The moment we allow any government—state or federal—to come in and seize private land and tell us what is good for us and what constitutes an emergency, we set a precedent that will come back and bite every single Texan,” he argued. “If they can take our land along the river today, they can come for yours tomorrow.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy