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immigration
Ansari Calls for Miller to Be ‘Investigated and Prosecuted’ for Illegal Push to End Birthright Citizenship
"You can crack down on visa fraud," said one observer. "You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy."
Aug 07, 2026
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy White House chief of staff and the architect of much of his anti-immigration agenda over the past decade, has been fixated for years on ending birthright citizenship in the US—and one Democratic congresswoman said Thursday that his latest attempt should be the last straw.
"Stephen Miller architected the entirety of Trump’s racist and fascist mass deportation agenda, and he’s the one pushing relentlessly to end birthright citizenship—which is illegal," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) after Trump and Miller announced two new executive orders related to the issue. "He needs to be investigated and prosecuted for the crimes he’s actively committing."
Weeks after the US Supreme Court—where three of the justices who make up the right-wing majority were appointed by Trump—ruled that the president's previous effort to end birthright citizenship for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional, Trump signaled a new tactic focusing on terminating the right for the children of specific groups of people.
The first order would end automatic citizenship for children born to parents who work for foreign governments at embassies or organizations in the US, parents who "engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship," and parents who are part of designated terrorist groups or an "alien enemy."
Stephen Miller: The president is using his authority as commander in chief, to sign first an executive order using the new rule in the Supreme Court issued to expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship
That includes, for example, alien enemies… pic.twitter.com/TtpWe0QYe1
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2026
The restriction would also pertain to babies who are "born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute"—but eliminating birthright citizenship for children born in US territories would require congressional action, according to The New York Times.
The second order aims to crack down on what Trump called "birth tourism," with more restrictions on visitors to the US who give birth while in the country and try to obtain visas.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the new executive action, like the order Trump signed to end birthright citizenship shortly after he took office last year, "seemingly violates the Constitution."
In the Oval Office at the White House late Thursday, the president cited no evidence as he claimed foreigners have obtained citizenship for their children, who numbered in the dozens.
“You have one man came in with a family... said he had 56 children," said Trump. "Another one came in. They said they had 98 children. This was not what it was for. This was meant for the babies of slaves. It was, it was right after one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.”
Miller also emphasized that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, was meant to confer citizenship only to the children of people who had been enslaved before the Civil War ended.
But the origin of the law did not stop the Supreme Court from ruling in June that birthright citizenship is the law of the land under the US Constitution.
The president claimed "hundreds of thousands" of people in the US have benefited from birthright citizenship due to tourists giving birth in the country and the other scenarios described in the executive orders, but a study by Pennsylvania State University recently found that fewer than 0.3% of babies born in the US are born to tourists in any year.
Miller spoke during the Oval Office event, speaking out against people who "come here pretending to be a tourist... but the real reason they're here is to have a child."
Lying on a visa application in order to give birth in the US has long been illegal, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out.
Miller claimed that Section 215A of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Trump the authority to enact the new restrictions on birthright citizenship, but even a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke anonymously to the Times said no new enforcement would come out of the birth tourism order.
The deputy chief of staff, who has also taken a leading role in orchestrating Trump's mass deportation campaign, claimed that the birth tourism order was "especially historic."
The word "historic," said writer Mike Young, was "doing a lot of work."
"You can crack down on visa fraud. You cannot have Stephen Miller stand beside the Resolute Desk and turn the 14th Amendment into a hotel checkout policy," said Young. "Birthright citizenship is not a loophole. It is the Constitution."
Immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta noted that even so-called "birth tourism" was covered in the Supreme Court's recent ruling, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that fact in his dissent.
"I expect a court to hold that most of Trump's new executive order is blatantly unconstitutional," said Mehta. "Trump is a small and petty man with a venal mind, and will be historically remembered as such down the ages, along with his henchman and collaborator Stephen Miller, who love to attack newborn children!"
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‘Like the Gestapo’: Trump-Voting Businessman Horrified After ICE Arrest of His Fiancée
"The most horrible things shouldn’t have to happen to you in order to oppose them," said one critic.
Aug 07, 2026
A Trump voter is in shock after the president's ongoing effort to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in US history impacted him personally.
In an interview with CBS News published Thursday, Texas businessman John Gannon expressed regret for supporting President Donald Trump in the 2024 election after federal immigration officials last month detained his fiancé, a Venezuelan immigrant named Yasmin Suarez Reyes.
Gannon said that he expected that Trump's mass deportation campaign would only go after criminals who are unlawfully in the US, but instead found "they are picking up law-abiding citizens" and "destroying families, jobs."
Texas businessman John Gannon says he feels "totally betrayed" after his Venezuelan fiancée, Yasmin Suarez Reyes, was detained by ICE at Houston's international airport.
A lifelong Republican who says he voted for President Trump, Gannon told CBS News' @camiloreports he now… pic.twitter.com/7dDvGH1TrM
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 6, 2026
Gannon, the owner of over 1,000 billboards in the US and of a hotel and restaurant in Mexico, explained that Suarez Reyes was detained in July by multiple US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after passing through security at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
According to Gannon, the ICE officers "swarmed" Suarez Reyes and "wrestled her off into a car" without providing an explanation.
"This is like the Gestapo," Gannon said.
Anne Kennedy, an attorney representing Suarez Reyes, told CBS that her client entered the US legally and had a pending asylum case and had been able to get a work permit and a Texas driver's license before she was detained. Kennedy also noted that Suarez Reyes had no criminal record.
"For almost two weeks now, she has been in a physical jail cell," said Kennedy, "when she has done nothing more than follow the laws of the United States and do what our immigration laws allow her to do."
When asked by CBS what message he had for Trump, Gannon encouraged the president to "go after the criminals" but "leave the mom and pops and the kids alone."
"Man, he's destroying families," Gannon added.
Some critics expressed little empathy for Gannon's situation, however, given Trump's decades of racist attacks on immigrants.
"You voted for Trump to do this to other people," commented journalist Molly Knight. "You’re mad because he’s not doing this to 'the right people,' as defined by you."
Election forecaster Rachel Bitecofer was similarly unsympathetic, and sarcastically summed up Gannon's position as, "I only wanted other people's relatives deported!"
Gun safety activist Shannon Watts questioned why Gannon needed to be personally impacted by Trump's policies to turn against them.
"The most horrible things shouldn’t have to happen to you in order to oppose them," Watts wrote.
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Trump's Immigration Policies Have Been Rejected; Why Won't Dems Act Like It?
Rather than continue internecine fights, Democratic elites should join the grassroots in fighting the real adversary—the brutal, violent, white-nationalist deportation campaign now tearing this country apart.
Aug 05, 2026
With midterms approaching and the future of US.democracy balanced on a knife's edge, a media-driven moral panic about the Democratic Socialists of America is dividing the Democratic Party. That's unhelpful. Everyone knows Democrats need to unify under a big tent to retake Congress and check President Donald Trump's authoritarianism. This isn't the first unproductive debate of its kind. Before it came another fight—over the proper role of resistance to Trump's immigration crackdown—driven by the same hand-wringing, among the same people, that has slowed progress for years. As with immigration, the lesson is the same: it is grassroots resistance, not elite caution, that is winning this fight, and Democrats' cowardice in scapegoating their own base is what's holding the party back.
CNN reports that Trump is polling lower than Herbert Hoover did in the Great Depression, and a recent Fox News poll shows that voters now favor Democrats over Republicans on immigration. That is a huge turnaround—the GOP led by eight points on immigration as recently as April. That's also a huge collapse for Trump on what was once his signature issue. But it shouldn't be shocking or surprising. Trump's (and by extension all Republicans’) popularity on immigration was bound to go down from the moment he was sworn in. The only question is why it took so long.
Trump's failure on immigration was baked in, predestined, and unavoidable. The tragedy is that too many Democratic leaders and policy influencers have never understood this. Their tepid and craven response to Trump’s barbaric treatment of immigrants has hindered emerging bottom-up national consensus that can overtake Trumpism.
For years, Democratic party elites urged immigrants and advocates to abandon their ferocious defense of immigrants' rights. They said endlessly that the only way to win good immigration policies was to compromise on the bad ones. Their path to comprehensive immigration reform required grassroots activists to fall in line. Pundits, think tank thought leaders, and the philanthropic donor class insisted it was smart politics not to challenge the Republicans' dishonest framing of immigration. That is, as a crime and jobs problem to be solved only with more policing, as a security threat to be solved with militarized borders, and a public-health emergency to be solved by ending asylum. And that's not to mention the cultural panic.
While Democrats continue to read polls and ruminate over slide decks, the vilified street protests are doing their work for them.
Talk tough, they told us. Give Republicans what they want on the border, the prisons, the boots, and guns. Avoid using the word “amnesty” to talk about legalization. Say no to "sanctuary cities,” say yes to the Chamber of Commerce, and shut up about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Then they might let you have some extra green cards. And if we don’t win immigration reform in Congress, we were told, at least we will have an issue that will keep Latinos voting for Democrats in the next election. And we can even tell undecided voters and moderate Republicans that we’re just as tough as the other guys. In short, the Democratic elite felt confident it could play all sides.
But the visas never came. Reform never happened. Trump won the White House, and won again (this time with a higher share of Latino support), and the Republicans took Congress and the Supreme Court along with it. How did prospects for immigration reform and the Democrats political advantage disappear into thin air?
Democrats, consultants, and talking heads needed to pin the blame. Immigrants themselves were the first scapegoats. Newcomers made lunch-pail voters nervous. Asylum-seekers were next. Too many, too fast. America was full. "No vacancy," said the cover of The Atlantic magazine.
But then, curiously, a new culprit emerged: grassroots immigrant-rights organizations like mine—known derisively by collective shorthand as "the groups” among the Acela corridor class. They said "the groups" had pushed President Joe Biden to be too radical on immigration. Too "open borders." Too tolerant of people fleeing poverty and death and seeking refuge here. Too heedless of public opinion. Too sanctimonious.
That view was always wrong. Let's unpack why.
Trump's first presidential campaign began with an explicitly racist anti-immigrant lie about Mexicans. He ran on his promise to build a border wall to keep out criminal rapists and terrorists and to win back jobs for native-born Americans. He made his racist, xenophobic agenda more explicit when he ran for and won a second term, replacing the promise of the big, beautiful wall with a pledge to do mass deportations.
But that fascist tactic—promising quick, brutally simple answers to complex problems—was bound to fail. Lofty promises on immigration are easy for candidates because immigration is a meta issue that encompasses the fiction that a country tells about itself. For the MAGA movement (always a minority of the country, it’s worth remembering), America is a secure homeland for white English speakers. For Trump, it’s more like a vast country club, exclusive and gated like his fabled Mar-a-Lago.
In his first term, Trump’s deranged fantasies about immigration and other things started vaporizing immediately. Support for his false promises precipitously and steadily declined soon after his inauguration and throughout his term. The wall never got built. America didn't become Great Again.
Now, just as in Trump's first time in the White House, a huge chasm has opened up between lies and reality. The gaps are many. Get criminals? They're already covered by the criminal-justice system. Seal the border? It already was. Make America Great Again, again? With masked death squads terrorizing American cities? Yeah, right.
Mismanaging expectations is nothing new for modern presidents. George W. Bush had the right instincts on immigration, but he couldn’t close the bipartisan deal handed to him by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). President Barack Obama had lofty goals and rhetoric. But he became the deporter-in-chief, a terrible stain on his historic legacy, and one that prefigured Trump’s outright war on immigrants. President Biden’s brightest moment in an otherwise dismal campaign was his promise to defend asylum. Until he ended it.
That cycle of promise and betrayal on immigration had become the rule, not the exception. Everyone knows the immigration system needs modernizing—amnesty paired with sensible enforcement measures—but with Congress dysfunctional beyond all recognition, no president has been able to deliver legislation. So they have all reached for executive power instead, using it not just to govern but to wedge and divide the opposition party. For a while, it worked. Republicans were in full-scale disarray after Obama's 2012 reelection, with voices from Sean Hannity to Charles Krauthammer calling for surrender on immigration reform.
This all changed with Trump. As a candidate, he defied the conventional wisdom of Republican elites with overt racism. In office, he became truly unique: the first president to triple down on an authoritarian, white-supremacist agenda rather than tack to the middle. Trump has a lap-dog Republican Congress and more leverage than any other recent president to cut a comprehensive immigration deal. But he likely won't—certainly not when his top ghoul, Stephen Miller, is pursuing a vast ethnic-cleansing campaign instead. By now, the only constant in Trump’s addled mind is probably a belief in his own lies about immigration and in the notion that punching down at immigrants is the only way to save himself.
With Trump's popularity on immigration destined to fail, and with daily images of ICE cruelty that shock the conscience, all Democrats had to do was stay united in opposition. First, to help the people they had been promising citizenship for more than 20 years. Second, to help themselves. Instead, their divisions in the face of Trump's campaign of white supremacy have been uniquely ugly and counterproductive. Democratic elites made the same mistake Republican elites made in their 2012 autopsy, only in reverse. They mistook the repudiation of Biden’s failure as a ratification of Trump’s racist vision of America. The difference is that this time, far more people are suffering for it. And democracy itself is now at risk if Democrats don’t change course.
Cecilia Muñoz and Frank Sharry—the two leading Obama-era voices guiding Democrats on immigration from inside and outside the White House—should have blamed themselves for decades of failure. Instead, they conveniently blamed "the groups." Senate Democrats surrendered on the racist Laken Riley Act. Two supposedly progressive Democrats, Sens. Jon Ossoff (Ga.) and Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), are already calculating how much this capitulation will cost their 2028 presidential ambitions.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) assailed Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for standing up for Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the former day laborer whom the Trump administration defamed, abducted, and disappeared into a torture prison in El Salvador.
And it's not just Obama alums and elected officials. Pundits from Matt Yglesias to the Pod Save America bros have warned of doom if Democrats don't keep the groups in check and moderate on immigration. How many New York Times op-eds have blamed the 1965 immigration act for the rise of right-wing xenophobia? How many have blamed immigrants for upsetting white voters? Not even hashtags were spared—somehow #AbolishICE got blamed for everything.
Meanwhile, the maligned groups in the field have labored on—with far more to do, with far fewer resources, and with none of the luxury enjoyed by the elites who spent their time pointing fingers. There's no time for that when the work itself is the emergency.
They are helpers to those in need. Across the country, in response to what is now a full-scale domestic human rights crisis, leadership has come from the streets, not from those in elected office. People assisting neighbors. Defending their communities. Protecting kids. Showing up at courthouses and ICE check-ins so no one faces fascism alone. And immigrants and citizens standing and marching together, courageously, in the streets to demand: ICE out of our cities.
While Democrats continue to read polls and ruminate over slide decks, the vilified street protests are doing their work for them. The resistance that Beltway Democrats shun has become their lifeline—turning the tide on the one issue Trump was supposed to own.
And those sanctuary policies, once treated as the source of Democrats' problems back in 2016? They have literally stopped hundreds of thousands of deportations—in police stations, in jails, in courthouses across the country.
The Beltway Democrats' skittishness—their craven blaming of immigrants to conceal their own failure—has been a brake on progress. Those people need to join the resistance. Do something. Help someone. And stop bashing the people you claim to defend.
Absent the mother of all pivots from the White House, the downward trajectory for Trump on immigration will continue inexorably. The only questions are about the rate of decline and what comes next.
Rather than continue internecine fights, Democratic elites should join the grassroots in fighting the real adversary—the brutal, violent, white-nationalist deportation campaign now tearing this country apart. They should get out of their conference rooms and Zoom calls and hit the streets with us. A number of members of Congress have already followed Sen. Van Hollen's lead, forcing their way into the warehouses where immigrants are jailed in defense of their constituents. Every Democrat should do the same. Not as a photo op, but because it's right. And because in every election to come, Democrats will be judged not by their campaign promises, but by what they did in years Trump was in office.
The stakes go beyond the midterms. Fighting back now, unequivocally, is what will get Democratic leaders ready for what comes after Trump's inevitable downfall. They need to think about the vast possibilities ahead—restoring truth to immigration discourse, and pursuing policies that make a real difference in the lives of real people. They should be as ambitious in proposing new ways to help immigrants and rebuild this country as Trump has been in trying to destroy it.
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Mother Says ICE 'Negligence' Killed Second Man to Die at Notorious NJ Lockup
"I don't want my son's death to go unanswered. If justice isn't served, they'll just keep doing this, and there's no telling how many more people in this country we might lose."
Aug 04, 2026
The mother of a man who became the second immigrant held at the notorious Delaney Hall US Immigration and Customs Enforcement lockup in Newark, New Jersey to die in ICE custody said Monday that she believes her son's death was the result of medical negligence.
Longtime Plainfield resident Edwin Jovanny López Cornejo, a 41-year-old Salvadoran national who had reportedly entered the United States as a child, died Saturday at University Hospital. He had a 12-year-old daughter.
According to ICE, López Cornejo "experienced a medical emergency," and staff at Delaney Hall—which is run by prison profiteer GEO Group—"responded immediately and called 911 for emergency medical services."
However, in a video interview posted on Facebook by the immigrant justice group Movimiento Cosecha, López Cornejo's mother, María Cornejo said that her son had been prescribed medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures, and that she suspects that staff at Delaney Hall may not have given him his medicines during the six weeks he was held there.
Cornejo said Lopéz Cornejo called her the night before his death and said that something was wrong.
“He said his right hand and face were numb," she said. "He told me he was going to be examined, but I don’t know if he actually received care. I also don’t know if he was being given his medication.”
According to Cornejo, University Hospital informed her of her son's death, saying he arrived at the facility lifeless.
Congressman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said ICE told him that López Cornejo was administered CPR during some of the 37 minutes it took for first responders to arrive.
"That is one of the reasons that I believe caused the death of my son, the negligence—that he wasn't given his medication that he had to take," Cornejo told Movimiento Cosecha.
ICE said that "while in custody, López Cornejo received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals."
Numerous Democratic politicians from New Jersey and beyond called for the immediate closure of Delaney Hall, which has become a symbol of broader concerns about President Donald Trump's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown, detention in what some critics call concentration camps, aggressive enforcement, and prison profiteering.
Among them was recently elected progressive Congresswoman Analilia Mejia, who represents the district adjacent to the one in which Delaney Hall is located.
"My gravest concerns about conditions for medically vulnerable people at Delaney Hall are now confirmed," she wrote in a statement.
"Under these conditions, medically vulnerable people are being given death sentences due to the lack of care."
"This is not the first life we’ve lost inside that facility," Mejia continued, referring to Haitian national Jean Wilson Brutus, also 41, who collapsed and died there in December of what a medical examiner said was a lung blockage.
New Jersey’s own health inspectors have been denied full access, including the medical unit, again and again. If there’s nothing to hide, there’s no reason to keep them out," Mejia said.
"DHS must carry out a full, independent investigation," she demanded. "This family, and New Jersey, deserve real answers, justice, and accountability. Under these conditions, medically vulnerable people are being given death sentences due to the lack of care."
"Delaney Hall must be shut down," Mejia added. "Abolishing and replacing ICE is the only way to correct this—a system that lets this happen again and again cannot be reformed. It must be rebuilt around human dignity.”
At least 56 people have died while in ICE custody during Trump's second term.
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) said that López Cornejo's "detention alone was an act of cruelty, and if he indeed was denied his medication as his family reports, the operators at Delaney Hall should be charged with homicide."
"A second person has died at the for-profit prison. Delaney Hall is a stain on our country. Its continued use is a daily reminder of the cruelty of our immigration and criminal justice systems. It should be shut down at once, and those responsible for its inhumane conditions should be investigated and tried.”
Delaney Hall has become one of the nation's most controversial immigration detention centers since reopening in 2025. Detainees have reported inadequate food, poor sanitation, overcrowding, retaliation for protests, and delayed access to medical treatment. Earlier this year, hunger strikes and demonstrations drew national attention, while lawmakers who repeatedly sought access to inspect conditions inside the facility were attacked along with protesters.
Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she was "deeply disturbed" by López Cornejo's death.
"I have long opposed the use of private, for-profit prisons operating in a space that should be reserved for government,” Sherrill said in a statement. “Corporations should not have the right to monetize imprisoning people while avoiding public accountability. This is why we are fighting to close Delaney Hall, and why we will continue using every tool available to stop new private detention facilities—like the proposed facility in Roxbury—from opening their doors."
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, released a statement on social media:
Civil rights and immigrant defense groups condemned López Cornejo's death.
"This tragedy is another devastating result of the rampant inhumane conditions at Delaney Hall and detention centers across the country, including the routine denial of proper medical care, sanitary conditions, and food," ACLU of New Jersey executive director Amol Sinha said in a statement.
"The Trump administration’s detention and deportation machine continues to terrorize and traumatize communities at an unprecedented level, yet numbers cannot encapsulate the grief and devastation that these abuses cause," Sinha added. "We demand accountability from ICE, the immediate closure of Delaney Hall, and an end to immigration detention once and for all.”
Jorge Torres, organizing director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said that “Edwin Jeovanny López Cornejo should be alive today. His death was preventable, and his family deserves answers, accountability, and justice."
Cornejo told Movimiento Cosecha that she wants "justice" for her son.
“These men go around grabbing hard-working people,” she said of federal immigration enforcers. “This country moves forward because of immigrants... But they don’t see that. They only see the damage they are doing, but they don’t see the good things one does in this country.”
"I don't want my son's death to go unanswered," Cornejo added. "If justice isn't served, they'll just keep doing this, and there's no telling how many more people in this country we might lose."
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Critics Decry Trump Administration's Force-Feeding Torture of ICE Detainees
"If they admit openly that there are hunger strikes, they admit that the conditions in detention are so bad that people are willing to forgo food in order to raise awareness," one lawyer said of the administration.
Aug 03, 2026
The Trump administration subjected hunger-striking immigrants held in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers to involuntary medical procedures, including forced feeding, a blatant and painful violation of medical ethics widely considered to be torture.
In the second article of a two-piece series, The Guardian revealed on Monday that court records showed ICE personnel attempted to subject at least 10 hunger-striking detainees to the procedures. At least three, and possibly five, detainees were force-fed, while five others ended their hunger strikes at the last minute rather than undergo the invasive, non-consensual insertion of a plastic tube through the nose, down the throat and esophagus, and into the stomach to deliver liquid nutrition against their will.
Hundreds of people have gone on hunger strike at ICE detention centers across the country to protest overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, spoiled and worm-infested food and water, inadequate medical care, delays in immigration procedures, alleged physical and psychological torture, and other mistreatment.
The Guardian's investigation found that one Kurdish asylum seeker detained at ICE's Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Los Fresnos, Texas was subjected to force-feeding for eight months, while another hunger-striker at the same facility endured six months of the painful procedure. In six cases reviewed by The Guardian, immigrants who were force-fed had no legal representation.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that detainees receive adequate meals and care and disputes reports of abuse.
In May, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin dismissed the hunger strikers as a "handful" of detainees and falsely claimed they were striking because they "want their ethnic right food."
"Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want... This isn't Holiday Inn," he added while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick looked on and smiled approvingly.
DHS Secretary Mullin dismisses the detainee hunger strike in an ICE facility:
They're refusing to eat because they want their ethnic food. Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want. This isn't Holiday Inn. pic.twitter.com/tdUYMkUy1K
— FactPost (@factpostnews) May 27, 2026
A judge must authorize the forced feeding of ICE detainees. According to The Guardian, judges often quickly issue the requested emergency orders before immigrants can legally object.
“There’s very little due process in these proceedings,” immigrant rights attorney Eunice Cho told the newspaper, comparing the judges' orders to a "rubber stamp."
Global medical authorities, United Nations bodies, human rights defenders, and others—including people subjected to it—call forced feeding a form of torture.
"The tube went inside a little bit and then got stuck," Ajay Kumar, a former ICE detainee force-fed during Trump's first term in 2019, told The Intercept, which in 2022 obtained video of the Indian asylum seeker being strapped and pinned down by five guards in riot gear before having the nasogastric tube forced into him.
"I felt as if [the tube] was going down my throat, tearing up the insides, and blood started coming from my mouth and nose," he said. "It was very hard."
"After that they took me for an X-ray. After doing the X-ray, they informed me that the tube has not been inserted properly, so we will have to insert it again," Kumar recalled. He was asked if he wanted to end his hunger strike and, when he said no, the second insertion began. "It was more painful. These people are torturing me. The one ICE officer, I never forget him. He's smiling."
Kumar was taken for a second X-ray and was again informed that the tube was incorrectly inserted. He was again asked if he would continue his strike.
"You can torment me as much as you want, you won't be able to break my spirits," he told them. The tube was correctly inserted the third time and Kumar was pumped full of a nutritional shake. He said he could not breathe, sleep, or speak properly for weeks after.
Kumar said he was force-fed in front of three other detainees "so that they would all start eating after seeing what's happening to me."
"Whenever the doctors said, 'Yes, we are helping you, we cannot let you die like this,' I used to tell them, you are treating me worse than dying," he added.
Under the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Malta, doctors are advised to not force-feed prisoners who choose to hunger strike and understand the consequences of their actions.
“Forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable,” the declaration states.
In 1981, UK authorities allowed 10 imprisoned Irish Republican Army members, including former Member of Parliament Bobby Sands, to starve themselves to death in Northern Ireland. Their deaths occurred after between 46 and 73 days of refusing food.
In contrast, force-feeding is institutional policy in US prisons, including the Guantánamo Bay concentration camp in Cuba, where detainees—most of whom were charged with no crime—were force-fed during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
Immigrants detained by the US have been force-fed since at least the Obama administration.
Sarah Houston, a managing attorney at ImmDef, told The Guardian that an ICE Health Service Corps document acknowledging the force-feeding of detainees and viewed by the newspaper is a "blatant admission" that the practice is being used by the Trump administration.
“But if they admit openly that there are hunger strikes, they admit that the conditions in detention are so bad that people are willing to forgo food in order to raise awareness about the situation,” Houston said. “Because no one goes on hunger strike unless they are really desperate.”
Matthew Wynia, a medical ethicist and director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, said that “it is unethical to force treatment on someone who is saying, 'Don’t do this to me.'"
“People who are on hunger strike do not want to die, they are not suicidal," he continued. "They are using the only tool available to them to protest the circumstances of their confinement.”
“The idea of health professionals serving as agents of the state, rather than protectors of our patients, has a notorious history," Wynia added. "And for the medical profession, we really don’t want to go down that path again."
The Guardian series comes amid a broader pattern of abuse and neglect, sometimes deadly, of ICE detainees, many of whom are locked up in facilities run by private prison profiteers.
According to ICE’s public database, more than 50 people have died while detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency during President Donald Trump’s second term, including two people who were killed in a sniper attack on an ICE administrative and processing center in Dallas. At least 10 of the deaths were men who killed themselves, according to an Associated Press investigation published late last month.
Many of the deaths were preventable, say experts who point to systemic understaffing and DHS policy choices that weaken detainee care and employee oversight.
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Spain Must Put Human Rights at Center of Migration Response as Dozens Killed Crossing Into Ceuta: Amnesty
"Under international law, the principle of non-refoulement is absolute and collective expulsions are prohibited in all cases," said Esteban Beltrán of Amnesty International Spain.
Jul 31, 2026
The director of Amnesty International Spain on Friday said both Spanish and Moroccan officials must "put their human rights obligations at the center of their response" to an influx of about 60,000 migrants over 24 hours into the self-governing Spanish city of Ceuta, an exclave in North Africa that borders Morocco.
As the vast majority of people had reportedly returned to Morocco after facing aggression from Spanish police and armed forces who had been deployed to the territory, where a humanitarian crisis quickly unfolded following the migrants' arrival, the director of the group, Esteban Beltrán, issued a reminder of international law pertaining to migration.
"The large number of people arriving in Ceuta and the circumstances of crossings must not distract from the fact that under international law, the principle of non-refoulement is absolute and collective expulsions are prohibited in all cases," said Beltrán.
At least 57 people were killed while trying to cross into Ceuta, The Associated Press reported, with some drowning and others killed in a stampede as many of the migrants tried to cross a barrier near a border checkpoint.
"Spanish authorities must also ensure that adequate healthcare and social care resources are deployed to respond to the needs of the people, including to cater for the needs of children and others at increased risk of human rights violations," Beltrán said.
On Friday, even after about 48,000 people were reported to have crossed back over the border, reports still indicated that thousands of migrants were sleeping on the streets of Ceuta, with many reporting they had crossed into the territory in search of work.
“You ask why everyone came—because there’s no work in Morocco,” Ajoub el-Arrot, a 24-year-old Moroccan migrant, told The New York Times.
Abdulah Buji, 21, told the Times that he would "have to work 12-hour shifts for a meager wage."
“But I haven’t found any opportunities here either, so I have to go back," said Buji.
Italian and French authorities said they would tighten controls at their borders with Spain in light of the surge.
The arrival of the migrants drew the attention of the far right in Europe and the US, where conservatives have been critical of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's migration policy.
Earlier this year, contrasting with President Donald Trump's aggressive and violent crackdown on immigrants and mass deportation campaign in the US, Sánchez moved to grant up to 500,000 undocumented immigrants legal status in the country, with those who had arrived before January 2026 and had authorization to work made eligible.
Conservative Spanish politician Isabel Díaz Ayuso said Sánchez had allowed Spain "to be invaded through Ceuta,” while the US State Department said the sudden influx of migrants was "the direct result of the Spanish government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe.”
Sánchez's government countered that the situation in Ceuta had "nothing to do with the regularization of migrants," and the prime minister said human traffickers had misinterpreted a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling which said that people who arrive in the country by sea could not be summarily deported.
Claims that people could easily cross from Morocco into Ceuta "spread like wildfire over the past few hours through the networks of human trafficking organizations,” Sánchez said.
Another Spanish self-governing city on the North African coast, Melilla, also saw migrants attempting to cross from Morocco on Friday. Many Moroccans consider both Ceuta and Melilla to be occupied Moroccan territory.
While many of the migrants said they had been hoping to find work, they also told reporters that Moroccan authorities had urged the massive group to attempt to cross into Ceuta, according to the Times.
“They just kept saying, ‘Go that way, go that way,’” Youssef Alaoui, 26, said of Moroccan police officers near the border.
Some analysts suggested Morocco could be trying to pressure Spain out of strengthening ties with Algeria, a rival nation. The Spanish foreign minister made a recent trip to Algeria and spoke about importing more gas from the country, and Sánchez also recently visited.
“It is impossible for nearly 50,000 people to cross the border between Morocco and Spain in a single day without Morocco having a hand in it,” Lorenzo Gabrielli, a senior researcher at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, told the Times.
Meanwhile, Portuguese author and former Secretary of State for European Affairs Bruno Maçães pointed to calls made by pro-Israel think tanks in April for Israel to "help Morocco take over Ceuta in order to punish Spain" for its pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli positions.
"Spain's refusal to allow the United States access to its Rota and Morón military bases during the Iran campaign, its consistent failure to meet NATO defense spending targets, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's confrontational posture toward the Trump administration have collectively generated something rare in North African affairs: a genuine crack in Spain's strategic armor over Ceuta and Melilla," wrote Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum in April. "Into that crack, Morocco's most consequential new partner, Israel, is uniquely positioned to press."
Ayoub continued:
Israel can advance Morocco's cause through three distinct channels. First, through direct diplomatic signaling. Israeli acknowledgment that Spain's continued occupation of African territory undermines the post-colonial credibility that normalization frameworks require would reframe Ceuta and Melilla as a regional governance issue, not merely a bilateral spat. Second, through Washington corridors where Israel's influence is considerable, Israeli officials can amplify the case that Morocco's strategic contribution, anchoring the western Mediterranean, controlling the southern approach to the Strait of Gibraltar, and serving as America's longest-standing treaty partner, warrants concrete American support on its most persistent territorial demand. Third, Israel can expose Spain's glaring hypocrisy. Madrid has been among the loudest European voices condemning Israeli territorial policies and settlements. Spain recognized a Palestinian state in 2024 while simultaneously maintaining European enclaves on African soil that predate modern Israel by four centuries.
Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday that Spain "never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel."
"Maybe before it continues lecturing us," he said, "it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa."
Maçães said it was unclear whether Israel had pushed to "advance Morocco's cause," as Ayoub wrote, but he added, "whether or not the US and Israel were involved before the fact, they were deeply involved and intensely active after the fact, especially trying to use [the crisis in Ceuta] against the current Spanish government."
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'Five-Alarm Fire': Thousands of Immigrant Kids Set to Lose to Lawyers Thanks to Trump
"Abandoning children to meet deportation targets is immoral. This must stop. These children deserve legal representation."
Jul 30, 2026
Thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children could lose their lawyers beginning Friday as federally funded contracts supporting them are set to expire, prompting advocates to warn that the move will leave vulnerable minors to face deportation proceedings frightened and alone.
Since 2003, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has funded a nationwide network of around 100 advocacy groups that have offered legal services to unaccompanied minors who arrived in the United States without their parents or legal guardians, as well as children already in immigration custody.
The Trump administration's move to withhold over $65 million in congressionally appropriated funding starting late last year forced dozens of nonprofit advocacy groups to trim operations, refuse new clients, or end vital programs altogether. There is no apparent plan for continuing representation for roughly 20,000 children currently receiving legal assistance as they navigate the US immigration courts and deportation process.
"This is a five-alarm fire," Sen. Jeff Merkley said Thursday on social media. "It’s wrong under every moral code."
Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia Center for Justice—one of the nonprofits that received funding through the program—told El País' Patricia Clarembaux on Thursday, "We don’t know what’s going to happen on August 1 because the government has not informed us of the transition plan for the 20,000 children who have representation under this contract."
“It will really depend on whether the attorneys have alternative funding that allows them to continue," she added.
A child cannot be expected to navigate immigration court alone, yet that is exactly what will happen starting this Saturday if the Trump administration succeeds in dismantling these legal services.Tell Congress to honor its promise to protect unaccompanied children: tinyurl.com/protect-kids
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— Acacia Center for Justice (@acaciajustice.org) July 29, 2026 at 2:51 PM
HHS told El País that its Office of Refugee Resettlement—which is responsible for looking after immigrant minors—“remains fully compliant with legal and regulatory obligations and does not act in any way that could dissuade a child from seeking appropriate legal relief.”
However, as Acacia Center noted, "without legal representation, fewer than 1% of immigrant children are granted immigration relief. Without access to counsel, tens of thousands of vulnerable children could be forced to navigate life-changing legal proceedings with fewer protections, fewer advocates, and less time."
"HHS must honor its commitment and fulfill its obligation to pay for legal services already provided to prevent unaccompanied children from being stripped of their lawyers and deported without due process," the group argued.
Critics also point to President Donald Trump's record of mistreating unauthorized immigrants, especially children, over the course of his two terms. During his first term (2017–21), "zero tolerance" policies, including family separation and expanded use of what many observers call concentration camps, left thousands of children traumatized. Detention in overcrowded and often squalid facilities reportedly plagued by abuse has harmed many children since Trump's return to the White House last year.
Katie, a member of the group Women of Welcome and sponsor of immigrant children, responded to the imminent HHS funding cutoff last week, saying, “I have worked with immigrants in my professional life and have a lot of immigrant friends, but seeing the journey through the eyes of these kids was very new."
"The little girl I am adopting has been through a lot of trauma, and I may never know what she has gone through," Katie added. "She is resilient and funny, but she is 6, and she shouldn’t have to fight this system alone. This experience has not only deepened my faith, but I have learned more and more about how important the work of advocacy and loving people is. For these children, it is difficult to fight a system that isn’t built to protect them.”
Anna Devereaux, senior managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said that “children are children, regardless of their nationality, and our law and our values require us to act in their best interest."
"But the government’s failure to provide long-term funding has made it challenging to sustain a legal program for children," she added. "If this funding ends now, the future for these children is uncertain.”
Aber said: “These children are not leverage in a political negotiation. They are human beings—many of whom fled violence, trafficking, and abuse—who have a legally and morally recognized right to have their cases heard with a lawyer by their side."
"Abandoning children to meet deportation targets is immoral," she asserted. "This must stop. These children deserve legal representation."
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'Big Win': Two More US Courts Reject Trump's Mass Detention of Immigrants
"Today’s decision reaffirms that immigrants who contribute to our communities and have lived here for years deserve dignity, not detention," said US Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Jul 30, 2026
Two separate federal courts on Thursday rejected Trump administration's justification for its mass detention of immigrants.
First, a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the administration had misconstrued the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as mandating detention without bond for all undocumented immigrants in the US.
The court found that the INA's mandatory detention policy only applied to undocumented immigrants who had been apprehended shortly after crossing the border and not to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for years after entering the country illegally.
Judge Daniel Bress, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote for the majority that the administration's interpretation of the INA would constitute "a major change to the immigration laws by subjecting millions" of undocumented immigrants already living in the US to mandatory detention.
"We accordingly do not think that Congress in 1996 made such a large-scale change to our established system of immigration detention in the way that the government now contends," Bress added.
Shortly after the decision, a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals similarly rejected the Trump administration's mass detention policy, ruling 2-1 that the government's interpretation of the law "rests upon the illogical use of both legal fiction and ordinary meaning" to determine whether someone who has long lived in the US is "seeking admission" to the US.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted that six federal appeals courts so far have ruled against the administration's mass detention policy, while only two have ruled in favor. Decisions on the policy are also pending in three other federal appeals courts.
While predicting that the legal fight over interpretation of the INA is likely headed to the US Supreme Court, Reichlin-Melnick nonetheless said that the rulings were "great news."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) hailed the 9th Circuit's ruling against the Trump administration as a "big win."
"While this will likely be litigated further," Jayapal wrote in a social media post, "today’s decision reaffirms that immigrants who contribute to our communities and have lived here for years deserve dignity, not detention."
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Condemning 'Commodification of Child Imprisonment,' Castro Leads Call to Shut Down Dilley ICE Center
"There's a 2-month-old baby there and four pregnant women there," said the Texas Democrat. "It's no place for a 2-month-old baby to be, or even a 1- or 5-year-old kid."
Jul 29, 2026
Democratic Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro appeared on MS NOW early Wednesday to discuss his recent trip to and persistent efforts to shut down what he called a "trailer prison" where US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding families in Dilley.
After leading a letter signed by over 100 other Democrats calling for the closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, Castro on Tuesday conducted a congressional oversight visit of the facility with members of the Democratic Women's Caucus, including Reps. Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.), Lizzie Fletcher (Texas), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Luz Rivas (Calif.).
During the interview on "Morning Joe," Castro said that Americans have watched in horror as ICE has killed and brutalized US citizens and immigrants in the streets, "but there's a brutality behind the prison walls of these detention centers that almost no one gets to see except for members of Congress who have an opportunity to go inspect them."
While touring the Dilley center seven times recently, "I've seen a lot of desperate children. I've seen traumatized children. There is a system there that is abusive of people," Castro said, citing complaints of worms in food, yellow drinking water, and inadequate medical care.
"When I asked, they said the youngest person there is 2 months old—so there's a 2-month-old baby there and four pregnant women there right now. And, you know, I can tell you that it's no place for a 2-month-old baby to be, or even a 1- or 5-year-old kid," he said.
Noting that the Texas facility is run by a private prison company—CoreCivic—and condemning the "commodification of child imprisonment," Castro declared that "we want the Dilley detention center shut down."
His comments on MS NOW mirrored those he and other lawmakers delivered outside the facility, also known as the South Texas Family Residential Center, and during a press conference with the organizations FWD.us and Families Belong Together.
The center is currently detaining 539 individuals, from 84 families, according to Pressley. She said that "these are law-abiding people that are our neighbors—people we love, people we live next to, we work and worship with, who were just going about their lives and met with such an aggressive disruption that they will be recovering from for the rest of their lives."
"Dilley must be shut down. We have to abolish ICE. And then I'm gonna take it one step further and say any of those agents that have contributed to and caused the injury, the harm, and even fatalities, they must also be held accountable, and we should abolish qualified immunity for these federal law enforcement officers," she argued.
FWD.us president Todd Schulte also called for "shutting down Dilley and releasing these children and families immediately."
"Dilley reflects a broader pattern that should not be expanded with additional, unprecedented taxpayer funding," he stressed, denouncing the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the Republican-controlled Congress has poured into President Donald Trump's mass detention and deportation campaign, led by ICE and US Customs and Border Protection.
"This will only cause irreparable harm to children and communities," Schulte warned. "Thank you to the members who continue to call for the release of families, and we join them in their calls for Dilley's closure."
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Trump Admin Condemned After Missouri Couple Killed in Guatemala Following Deportation
"They knew this stuff was going to happen and are sending people back anyway."
Jul 29, 2026
"Deportation is a life-or-death matter."
That was one immigration attorney's response to the news this week that a couple who had lived in the St. Louis suburb of Overland, Missouri was found fatally shot in a sugarcane field near Retalhuleu, Guatemala, after the husband, Nixon Giovanni Pérez Paz, was deported there last year.
The couple's 14-month-old baby, Giovanni, was found crying next to the body of Pérez Paz's wife, Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz.
Pérez Paz, 43, and González de la Cruz, 25, showed signs of physical trauma and had apparently been bound and gagged before being killed. Police in Guatemala, where officials declared a state of emergency earlier this year over gang violence, are investigating the killings. Reuters reported that murders have spiked in the Central American country over the past week, with the government blaming organized crime.
In the US, observers including US Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) directed anger at the Trump administration, which has overseen a mass deportation campaign in which roughly 28,000 people were deported to Guatemala in the first six months of 2026, while hundreds of thousands more have been sent to other countries, including ones where they may face persecution, violence, and other security concerns.
"This is not immigration enforcement," said Moulton of President Donald Trump's deportation of Pérez Paz. "This is a body count. And every member of Congress and Senate enabling MAGA’s mass deportation police state owns it too."
According to St. Louis Public Radio, Pérez Paz and his brother were stopped by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Overland as they were driving to their roofing jobs. The two brothers were "swarmed" by agents before being handcuffed and shackled and taken to a local jail.
The agents told them they had no warrant for their arrest, but that they were being deported for entering the country without authorization.
Pérez Paz's brother, Rolando Pérez Paz, told St. Louis Public Radio from Guatemala, where he was also deported, that they did not have legal status in the US and had fled poverty and violence in their home country.
A spokesperson for ICE told the outlet that Pérez Paz had been convicted twice for drunk driving in Overland and had a 2010 open-container charge in Palm Beach, Florida, which had been dropped by prosecutors. No records were found in Missouri's court database to support the claim about the drunk driving conviction.
Court records show Pérez Paz had pleaded guilty to driving without a valid driver’s license in May 2024 and had paid a fine for the traffic violation.
"This isn’t due process," said Moulton. "This isn’t deporting the worst of the worst or whatever lies MAGA campaigned on."
González de la Cruz was pregnant when Pérez Paz was deported and remained in Overland, giving birth to Giovanni in June 2025; they also had two older daughters. She eventually returned to Guatemala to reunite the family after financial struggles and fears of deportation mounted, according to a local immigrant rights group called Missouri Workers Center Fuerza—even though she had a court date set for 2027 for her asylum case.
"Glendy came to our Fuerza meetings three weeks after giving birth. She was working two jobs, bringing new members, showing up—even as her world was being torn apart," said the group in a Facebook post inviting community members to a candlelight vigil for the couple on August 2. "The cruelty of this administration meant her husband could not be by her side for the birth."
The couple was reported missing on July 20 after leaving their home to register a motorcycle. They had faced "several months of struggles with financial hardships, run-ins with the federal government, and violence" before their deaths.
Reuters reported that a red striped motorcycle was found at the scene outside Retalhuleu. Their children are in the custody of Pérez Paz's brother.
"They knew this stuff was going to happen and are sending people back anyway," said one St. Louis resident of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
The deaths were reported as the White House directed ICE to ramp up operations targeting Haitians; Temporary Protected Status expired for Haitian refugees this week following a Supreme Court ruling last month. Hundreds of people could be forced onto deportation flights to the poverty-stricken country each week, according to the director-general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration. Like Guatemala, Haiti faces a crisis of violence by armed gangs.
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