Beyond the Border: Electric shock gloves, a border wall monitoring tool and detained military families
Here's what happened this week in immigration news.
Written by Jenna Ramiscal, Edited by Kate Morrissey
Welcome to another edition of Beyond the Border, which summarizes immigration news from across the country in a weekly roundup. Did we miss something? Message us via kate@daylightsandiego.org or on Instagram.
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Border construction
The Border Chronicle launched “Wall Watch,” a tool that allows community members to assist in mapping out wall construction and buoy barrier installation on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Contractors for the government began border wall construction at Big Bend National Park in Texas, The Washington Post reported. Environmentalists are concerned that the blasting will cause lasting harm to both the terrain and wildlife.
LOOKOUT reported that a crew of queer activists are living in and around a giant cottonwood tree in an Arizona border town to protect the tree and stop border wall construction.
Surveillance
The Department of Homeland Security is hiring private investigators to photograph the homes of deported immigrants in countries including Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, WIRED reported.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid contractors to monitor social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and X to identify users who spoke critically of the agency.
ICE is tracking over 54,000 immigrants with GPS-enabled ankle monitors, up by more than 35,000 people compared to data from early last year, The Guardian reported. GEO Group, a private prison corporation, has earned increased revenue from the use of the devices.
Immigration courts
A Colorado immigration judge who was fired by the Trump administration said that the courts are prioritizing speed over due process, The Denver Post reported.
Borderless Magazine reported that immigration courts, as part of the executive branch of government, were never independent, and that the Trump administration is using the system to fire judges and reshape priorities of the court in a more extreme way than previous presidents.
Federal court
The Guardian reported that the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging President Donald Trump’s new attempt to restrict birthright citizenship by asking the court to clarify that the new executive orders do not apply to children protected under its previous injunction..
The Justice Department sued Connecticut, New York and Vermont over in-state tuition policies for undocumented immigrants at public colleges and universities, The New York Times reported.
WIRED reported that the Department of Homeland Security, in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year, wants access to protesters' Signal chats. Plaintiffs are arguing that is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
A federal judge in California held the Trump administration in civil contempt for violating an order to image agents’ personal phones used in several immigration operations, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Immigration arrests
Capital & Main reported that since last summer federal agents have detained at least 373 car wash workers in raids across Southern California.
Immigration officials detained Karla Saenz, a trans woman, put her in the men’s unit at an ICE detention center and denied her hormone treatment and medication for her chronic illness, High Country News and LOOKOUT reported.
The Houston Chronicle reported that ICE arrested a man after he called 9-1-1 to report someone firing a gun at Home Depot. Houston police were not able to complete the investigation because the man had disappeared into ICE custody.
ICE detained a Venezuelan man who was released from detention last year to donate his kidney to his brother, The Chicago Tribune reported.
The San Antonio Current reported that the number of children held at a South Texas ICE processing center has increased since Rep. Joaquin Castro’s previous visit in May from 96 to 112.
L.A. Taco reported that ICE sent around 80 people to the Central Africa Republic without telling them, and the outlet spoke with a Cuban asylum seeker who ended up without ID, money or a cell phone.
An ICE charter flight turned around over the Atlantic Ocean and returned to a Louisiana airport where footage shows 11 detainees, exhausted and shackled, exiting the plane, journalist Gillian Brockell reported.
The 19th News reported that ICE detained 13 people at a national park and popular, family-friendly swimming area in North Carolina.
Community members documented on social media the moment ICE detained a woman who was traveling with the family for whom she worked as a nanny at Denver International Airport, The Denver Post reported.
Detained military families
The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration has detained over 50 parents and spouses of active-duty military members.
Immigration officials detained the wife of Army soldier Alexis Jaramillo in Alabama. Jaramillo said he felt betrayed by the government, WTOC11 reported.
Detention facility conditions
The Southlander reported that unsealed videos from a court case show staff at the Adelanto West facility using chemical weapons to break up a sit-in of people held in custody there.
A coalition of state lawmakers are pushing to pass a series of bills to monitor and respond to human right violations at immigration detention facilities throughout California, American Community Media reported.
Since the U.S. sent a group of immigrants to Equatorial Guinea as part of its third-country removal effort, the government there has imprisoned them at a hotel where they have been assaulted and threatened at gunpoint, Arizona Daily Star reported.
The Miami Herald reported that ICE detained a Venezuelan woman at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in July. She compared the conditions of Broward Transitional Center in Florida to animals being held in a zoo. NBC6 reported that the woman, Claudia Rodríguez, graduated from St. Thomas University and is a soccer player.
The Nation shared a commentary by Maryam Tahmasebi, a permanent resident with no criminal record, who is being held in ICE detention in Texas along with her son. ICE is holding her husband at a different facility. She said for four months she and her son have been able to communicate with her husband only via 10 minute phone calls in English.
Department of Homeland Security staff
The Atlantic reported that the person in charge of immigration data at the Department of Homeland Security resigned in late July, and the department has since stopped releasing timely and reliable statistics.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin upset prominent MAGA voices in the Republican party when he suggested increasing employment visas for some industries, POLITICO reported.
Updates on the ICE killing in Texas
The Houston Chronicle reported that after 22 days, ICE released from custody Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, a friend and boss to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and witness to ICE's killing of him.
CNN shared a video on Instagram of Rojas Pliego describing sitting only a few feet away when the shooting occurred and saying Araujo didn’t threaten ICE officers.
Other stories to watch
The Associate Press reported that ICE plans to spend $20 million to supply its officers with electric shock gloves.
Mother Jones Magazine reported that Glendy Marisol González, the woman who was found shot dead in a Guatemalan sugar cane field, chose to self-deport five weeks prior to reunite with her husband who was deported last year.
CoreCivic, a private prison company, said it will use the proceeds from selling four facilities, including Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, to buy back stock, creating a potential surge in profit for the company's shareholders, inewsource reported.
WBEZ Chicago reported that Chicagoans filed a report with the Chicago Police Department alleging misconduct by federal immigration officials during Operation Midway Blitz. They include Marimar Martinez, whom a Border Patrol agent shot five times about 10 months ago.
Catholic nuns are organizing demonstrations to support Haitian residents summoned to ICE offices, The 19th News reported.
Migrant Insider reported that state Senator Aisha Wahab, who is running for former Rep. Eric Swalwell's seat, has not condemned racist comments her father made about her opponent, which included calling for ICE to arrest the fellow Democrat.
Thanks for reading! Take care and stay well.
— Jenna
