Beyond the Border: Two ICE custody deaths, an end to a university-Border Patrol contract and force-feeding hunger strikers
Here's what happened this week in immigration news.
Written by Rami Alarian, 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.
Want to support this work? Consider donating to Daylight San Diego or email lauren@daylightsandiego.org if you're interested in sponsoring this newsletter.
A note from Kate: as we were preparing this newsletter for publication, news broke that President Donald Trump has signed two new executive orders to restrict birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court blocked his previous order. Here are links to coverage from The Guardian, Reuters and The Washington Post. We will keep an eye out for how this develops over the next week.
Deaths in ICE custody
Enlace Latino NC reported that a 29-year-old Mexican man who lived in Durham, North Carolina, died last month in a Georgia hospital due to an aggressive leukemia after he said he was denied medical care in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. He waited eight days for medical treatment according to his family and was in a coma at the hospital by the time ICE released him to family, WABE reported.
The New York Times reported that a Salvadoran immigrant died over the weekend while held at Delaney Hall Detention Facility, marking the second detainee death there since its reopening.
Bergen Record reported that the man’s mother said he took medication for diabetes, epilepsy and high blood pressure and that he'd called to tell her that he wasn't feeling well and was experiencing numbness in several places in his body.
The attorney representing family members of a 31-year-old Haitian immigrant who froze to death shortly after ICE released her from custody said that because of her mental health condition, officers should have done more to help her return to her family, The Guardian reported. The woman's family plans to file a lawsuit after medical examiners ruled her death a homicide, the outlet reported.
Conditions in ICE custody
That the Department of Homeland Security used court orders to subject at least 10 hunger strikers in detention to force-feeding, which human rights groups consider to be a form of torture, The Guardian reported.
L.A. Taco reported that attorneys for a TikTok creator detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California released a video showing him holding a water bottle that appeared contaminated with worm-like creatures.
A court-appointed monitor found ICE is failing to provide adequate healthcare at the California City Immigration Processing Center, citing deficiencies that include missing medications and cancer treatment delays, CalMatters reported.
L.A. Taco reported that a Stockton DJ whom ICE detained at San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center said that many people in custody with her got sores on their faces and bleeding gums, among other medical issues. She previously spoke with Daylight San Diego about what she experienced in custody.
WIRED reported that ICE published draft contract terms for four private detention facilities, the Tacoma facility among them, that said that state and local laws “shall not apply.”
Arrests and releases
A Polish green card holder has spent 51 weeks in ICE custody after officers arrested her over a decade-old misdemeanor theft charge that she had already resolved, The Chicago Tribune reported. A judge ordered her deported in December.
The day that the Trump administration banned ICE officers from making vehicle stops, several chased a car of roofers through a residential area, endangering a mother and son before arresting a U.S. citizen, The Texas Observer reported.
CBS News reported that ICE officers detained a Johns Hopkins University researcher from Cameroon at an airport over an expired visa. ICE officers released her soon after with a preliminary hearing on August 10.
The Oaklandside reported that ICE released an Oakland resident after arresting her at an airport 10 days prior.
Federal court updates
The Justice Department has activated the Alien Terrorist Removal Court for the first time in history to argue for the removal of a woman accused of supporting the Islamic State rather than charging her in a criminal case, NPR reported.
Tacoma Weekly reported that a court of appeals sided with private prison company GEO Group and blocked health inspectors from entering the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh alleges the Trump administration deliberately fast-tracked deportations of unaccompanied immigrant children by denying enough time to complete federal applications, The Guardian reported.
The New York Times reported that federal prosecutors in Atlanta charged a U.S. citizen with felony obstruction after he gave customs officers a passcode that erased the contents of his phone.
A federal judge blocked New York’s law banning ICE officials from wearing masks and requiring them to provide identification, The New York Times reported.
Chicago Sun-Times reported that Indiana’s attorney general sued the town of Merrillville for passing a resolution that opposed a potential ICE detention center there.
Federal officials have increasingly charged people protesting ICE with conspiracy to impede federal agents, a felony, NPR reported.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a Homeland Security Investigations agent testified in deposition that a Border Patrol raid outside of a Gov. Gavin Newsom rally was a political stunt.
Immigration court updates
NPR reported that the Trump administration has systematically weakened the U.S. asylum system through the firing of over 170 immigrant judges, new fees and work permit delays. This push has decreased asylum approval rates to their lowest levels in two decades.
Nearly 26,000 unaccompanied migrant children might lose legal protections after the Office of Refugee Resettlement stopped paying for legal services for children in retaliation for lawyers refusing to provide the agency with confidential information about the children, NPR reported.
The Associated Press reported that an appellate court ruled that the Trump administration cannot deny bond hearings to immigrants detained after they were already inside the United States.
Mourning the deaths
STLPR reported that people gathered outside of Overland City Hall last Sunday to mourn former residents of the Missouri town found dead in a Guatemalan sugarcane field shortly after deportation.
Organizers held a vigil outside of a Department of Homeland Security office in Virginia to honor those who have died in ICE custody, ABC 8 News reported.
The New York Times reported that community members in Houston used AI song-generator apps to quickly compose corridos to honor Lorenzo Salgado Araujo after an ICE officer shot and killed him.
Other News
CalMatters reported that, after public pressure, University of California San Diego cut ties with Operation Stonegarden, a federal program that paid campus police to assist Border Patrol.
A U.S. Army veteran and a professor continue to rebuild their lives after ICE detained them over a year ago during a raid on a cannabis farm that left 375 people detained and one dead, The Guardian reported.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego’s FAITH ministry organized volunteers to witness ICE arrests at immigration court daily, Faith and Leadership reported.
Capital & Main reported that a pastor in Los Angeles housed two Iranian sisters after ICE released them from detention, causing some turmoil among his parishioners.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office sued supermarket sushi franchisors for allegedly misclassifying sushi chefs, many of them refugees from Myanmar, as independent franchisees to avoid dealing with California labor law and to exploit workers, PRISM reported.
The Associated Press reported that many nationwide care facilities and home health facilities will lose much of their workforce due to the end of Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians.
Border Patrol is shifting its focus to highway checkpoints after border crossings in San Diego dropped to the lowest level since 2019, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
NBC 7 San Diego reported that some DACA recipients have lost jobs due to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services delays.
Darshan Magdum, a member of viral boy band Boy Throb had his United States visa approved after bandmates spent months attempting to prove the group was legitimate following an immigration request for evidence, The Washington Post reported. The group celebrated in a video posted to Instagram.
The Washington Post reported that after the U.S. deported 146 people, including women and children, to Venezuela, Venezuelan officials detained them in a facility that, hours later, experienced an earthquake that killed more than 5,500 people. The U.S. sent another deportation flight to Venezuela on Monday, The New York Times reported.
WFYI reported that around 1,000 people rallied in Indiana in support of immigrants as a counter-event to a rally supporting mass deportations.
California congressional representatives unveiled the “Stop ICE’s Medical Neglect Act," which would require the Department of Homeland Security to create a confidential complaint database for people in ICE custody to report medical mistreatment, the Los Angeles Public Press reported.
