NEWS & RESEARCH
As of July 2026, the Trump administration has deported 980,000 people since returning to office, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The upsurge in deportations is in the face of legal pushback, including from judges appointed by Republicans. A U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn in October threw out a Trump administration lawsuit challenging New York City laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The federal government could not force local governments to assist with immigration enforcement, the judge said. The ruling came after another New York federal judge sharply rebuked ICE, saying its officers lied, lacked proper training, and fabricated records to cover up unwarranted arrests. The judge, a Trump appointee, wrote that agents involved in the mistaken arrest of two men had falsified records and tried to conceal illegal actions. He called the agency’s claim that it mistook the men for others part of a “troubling” pattern to justify false arrests. Other judges have faulted ICE for conducting making arrests without warrants and ignoring due process rights while conducting round-ups in pursuit of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. Federal judges in Colorado, California, and the District of Columbia have ordered federal immigration officers to stop making arrests without a warrant unless the detainees pose a flight risk. Judges have faulted immigration agents for unlawfully arresting and detaining immigrants – sometimes for lengthy periods -- without being able to demonstrate they were likely to flee.
SOURCES: Migration Policy Institute | The Hill | New York Times | Cal Matters | New York Times
ANALYSIS & OPINION
Courts have repeatedly taken issue with the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration efforts. U.S. District Judge Ramon Reyes threw out a Trump administration legal challenge to New York laws barring police from detaining immigrants at the request of federal authorities, saying that practice is already prohibited by state law. Federal Judge Gary R. Brown ruled in New York that ICE officers had lied and made up records to cover up illegal arrests. In California, Federal Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong wrote that immigration agents were conducting warrantless arrests in violation of the requirement to evaluate a suspect’s likelihood of escaping. U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ruled similarly in Oregon. "Due process calls for those who have great power to exercise great restraint," Kasubhai said. "That is the bedrock of a democratic republic founded on this great constitution. I think we're losing that." While high-profile immigration raids have grown quieter, the mass deportation campaign has intensified. Immigration arrests reached their highest level in the second Trump administration in July 2026, with nearly 50,000 arrests nationwide. One of the most troubling aspects of recent immigration enforcement is the degree to which state and local police have become enmeshed in the enforcement of federal immigration law. By participating in a program known as 287(g), local police and sheriffs are deputized as ICE agents. Nearly one-third of the country lives in an area with a 287(g) agreement. This expansion undermines public safety and community trust in law enforcement. “Americans want a solution to our immigration dilemma, as do law enforcement officials across this nation,” said William J. Bratton, former Los Angeles police chief. “But the solution isn’t turning every local police department into an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
SOURCES: NPR | National Immigration Law Center | New York Times | New York Times | Los Angeles Times
HOW TO FIX IT
Federal action:
There are multiple ways immigration enforcement risks violating civil rights. To specifically address the abuse of warrantless arrests:
Congress could pass a law strictly defining “flight risk.” By removing the “on-the-fly” justification used by ICE, the law would mandate a warrant for all non-emergency encounters.
Federal courts can issue rulings that clarify that administrative warrants, which are signed by ICE officials, not judges, and do not meet the constitutional threshold for “probable cause” required for warrantless arrests in non-emergency situations.
A federal mandate could require agents to run a citizenship check before an arrest is made, unless there is an immediate threat of violence. This would prevent the common abuse in which a citizen is detained first and verified later.
Require all ICE agents to wear body cameras during arrests to provide a federal record of whether a warrant was presented and how “exigency was determined.”
Several bills have been introduced to make it easier for victims of warrantless arrests and wrongful detentions to seek justice:
Justice for Citizens Wrongfully Detained by ICE Act: Introduced in October 2026 by Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, this bill specifically targets the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens. It proposes rolling back the legal protections that shield agents from lawsuits, establishing a minimum level of financial compensation for those who win their cases, and extending the statute of limitations for filing these suits.
Qualified Immunity Abolition Act of 2026: Introduced in January 2026 by Senator Edward Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, this legislation seeks to completely abolish the defense of qualified immunity for federal law enforcement officers, including ICE agents. This would allow victims of civil rights violations to sue the officers personally in court.
Qualified Immunity Accountability Act: Introduced in February 2026 by Rep. Julie Johnson, this bill aims to limit qualified immunity by lowering the legal standard required to prosecute federal officers when an individual's civil rights are violated.
State action:
The New Mexico Immigrant Safety Act (HB 9) takes steps to prevent state resources from supporting immigration enforcement, including banning any participation in the 287(g) program. The law also prohibits local governments from entering into agreements with ICE to hold people in their jails for immigration violations and using public property for immigration detention.
Delaware passed a law that bans any new agreements or extensions of existing collaboration agreements (HB 182).
Maryland passed an anti-287(g) law (SB 245 /HB 444) that also prevents any extensions or new agreements and requires any current agreements to end.
While stopping short of an outright ban, Vermont’s law adds a step before local law enforcement agencies may enter into 287(g) agreements by requiring the governor to authorize any such requests.
Maine passed a law (LD 1971) that, among other things, bans law enforcement from detaining people for immigration holds, the use of DHS officers as interpreters, and the sharing of personal data for immigration enforcement purposes. The law also bans Maine law enforcement from performing immigration enforcement-related activities.
Virginia’s HB 1441/SB 783 prohibits state law enforcement from supporting or providing any resources to immigration enforcement operations.
Litigation:
Litigation is currently targeting a January 2026 memo from ICE Director Todd Lyons. This memo radically expanded the definition of "likely to escape" to include anyone who might walk away during a street encounter, effectively authorizing warrantless arrests on the spot. Plaintiffs are arguing that this interpretation violates the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable seizures. Guzman v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (District of Maryland)
There has been a massive wave of habeas corpus petitions—over 89,000 filed in the first 13 months of the administration. These petitions are used to force the government to justify the legality of an individual's detention in court, often revealing that the arrest was conducted without a warrant or proper citizenship verification.
A major battle is currently centered on a July 2025 policy that denied bond hearings to all ICE detainees. While the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against these efforts, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case directly challenging the legality of this mandatory detention policy.
Legislation: H.R.10826 - Justice for Citizens Wrongfully Detained by ICE Act | S.3625 - Qualified Immunity Abolition Act of 2026 | H.R.7290 - Qualified Immunity Accountability Act | HB 9 - Immigrant Safety Act | HB 182 | SB 245 /HB 444 | LD 1971 | HB 1441/SB 783
