Beyond the Border: Purchasing warehouses for detention space, more kids in custody and arrested refugees
Here's what happened this week in immigration news.
Written by Kate Morrissey, Edited by Maya Srikrishnan
Welcome to another edition of Beyond the Border, which summarizes immigration news from across the country in a weekly roundup. Did I miss something? Message me via kate@daylightsandiego.org or on Instagram.
ICE's growing detention capacity
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to purchase warehouses around the country to turn into detention centers, but the agency is receiving pushback from local residents, USA Today reported. The federal government has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the deals, Bloomberg reported.
ICE purchased a warehouse in east San Antonio to turn into a detention center, KENS5 reported. The agency also purchased one in Berks County, Pennsylvania, Spotlight PA reported.
Migrant Insider reported that the Trump administration has repurposed a Navy contract to funnel money to ICE to expand its detention capacity.
Data analyst Austin Kocher reported that ICE is now holding more than 70,000 people in custody and tracking another 40,000 with ankle monitors, both records for the agency.
Meanwhile in Maryland, the Baltimore Banner reported that Howard County revoked a permit for an ICE detention facility.
Other immigration detention news
The Texas Tribune reported that two people held at a family detention center in Dilley, Texas, had measles. The San Antonio Express-News reported that local doctors are calling the outbreak a public health emergency.
The number of children held in ICE custody increased more than sixfold under the Trump administration, The Marshall Project reported.
KFF Health News reported that attorneys and family members are struggling to find out the locations of people hospitalized while in ICE custody.
CNN reported that a Minnesota woman's husband went missing for several days after ICE officers detained him at a green card interview.
California state senators introduced a bill that would require detention centers, including those run by ICE, to get public health licenses in order to operate, The Fresno Bee reported.
The Miami Herald profiled a wife who has followed her detained husband to more than a dozen locations as ICE transferred him again and again over his five months in custody.
Some federal public health officers quit after being forced to provide what they considered inhumane levels of care at immigration detention facilities, NPR reported.
Arrests and deportations
The Associated Press reported on Instagram that federal immigration officials forced its journalists to get back in their car when they tried to cover a raid in Minneapolis. The outlet reported that officials have continued to hold activists at gunpoint for following them.
The Guardian reported that ICE arrested a Trump-supporting Brazilian influencer in New Jersey.
Immigration arrests have increased by 1,500% in San Diego, CalMatters reported.
For Capital & Main, I reported that ICE detained more than 100 refugees in Minnesota and sent many to Texas. A judge ordered the administration to release them back to their families.
The Dallas Morning News reported that ICE detained the husband of a U.S. citizen school teacher in McKinney, Texas. The man had fled Venezuela and sought asylum in the U.S., where he met his wife. The community has been rallying on behalf of the couple.
A Border Patrol agent shot and injured a man in Arizona, NBC News reported. The agency said the man is a human smuggler, and the federal government has charged the man with assault.
Mother Jones reported that deportation flights aboard Omni charter planes have grown longer — in some cases taking several days.
Advice for coping with the effects of ICE raids
Sahan Journal spoke with Minnesota therapists about advice and resources for people needing mental health support because of immigration raids.
Borderless Magazine spoke with an attorney about what rights people in the U.S. have to film ICE activities.
Sahan Journal spoke with medical professionals about how people can keep themselves safe during immigration raids while seeking medical care.
Follow-ups to previous reporting
ProPublica reported that government records identified the officials who shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota as Border Patrol Agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection Officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
The Washington Post reported that federal immigration officials in Minneapolis are now wearing body cameras.
A judge ordered the federal government to release a 5-year-old boy and his father after immigration officials detained them in Minnesota and sent them to Texas, the Associated Press reported.
Reuters reported that President Donald Trump told Department of Homeland Security personnel not to get involved in law enforcement in protests in cities led by Democrats unless specifically requested or it involves federal property.
The New York Times reported that Tom Homan, Trump's “border czar,” said he would pull 700 immigration officials out of Minnesota, leaving about 2,000 still there.
KPBS reported that El Centro residents are worried about the return of Border Patrol leader Gregory Bovino. The New York Times reported that the former commander of agents making immigration arrests far from the border made anti-semitic comments on a phone call with lawyers.
The American Civil Liberties Union argued in court that the federal government has violated a settlement agreement with families separated under the first Trump administration after the government detained them again in his second term, NBC7 reported.
For Daylight, I wrote about an activist who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in federal court after unmasking an immigration official last year.
The Guardian reported that a U.S. prosecutor in federal court has contradicted claims made by the Department of Homeland Security about two Venezuelan immigrants shot by Border Patrol in Oregon.
Other stories to watch
In a scathing court order, a federal judge called out the racism in the Department of Homeland Security's decision to end temporary protected status for Haitians and blocked the government's attempt to make hundreds of thousands of Haitians deportable, Mother Jones reported.
The New York Times reported that businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul are suffering because of the immigration raids there.
Hackers targeted apps used to track ICE activity, 404 Media reported, including the site StopICE.
Migrant Insider spoke with an Irish activist living in the Netherlands who is working to identify U.S. immigration officials via the website ICE List.
The Washington Post reported that the Department of Homeland Security is using administrative subpoenas to silence and surveil citizens.
The Border Chronicle published a video of the first floating buoys installed by the Department of Homeland Security in the Rio Grande.
The chief justice of the California Supreme Court is monitoring immigration enforcement activity at courthouses around the state, CalMatters reported.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that pro-ICE billboards are upsetting community members ahead of the Super Bowl.
A training for new immigration judges tells them that asylum should only be granted in rare circumstances, Bloomberg Law News reported.
Members of the Los Angeles City Council are pushing back after the police chief indicated he didn't think it was a good idea to enforce California's new law banning law enforcement from masking to conceal identity, L.A. Taco reported.
A U.S. citizen has been in a Salvadoran prison since the Biden administration, The Intercept reported, after the government there arrested him because of his tattoos.
The city of San Diego will be filing amicus briefs to support states like Minnesota and Illinois in court cases against ICE after a unanimous vote from the city council, KPBS reported.
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