Beyond the Border: U.S. citizen detained, third-country deportations challenged and migrant remains found near border cameras

Here's what happened this week in immigration news.

Written by Emma Chen, 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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ICE-related deaths

A Costa Rican man with Type 1 diabetes died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Louisiana after his family and another detainee said he repeatedly struggled to receive insulin, food and water, NBC News reported. At least 26 people have died so far in ICE custody this year.

A Guatemalan construction worker died after crashing his vehicle while fleeing an attempted ICE traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, NBC News reported. 

Minneapolis neighbors began planning a permanent memorial for Alex Pretti about eight months after federal immigration officers killed the Veterans Affairs nurse during Operation Metro Surge, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

ICE shooting in Austin 

The New York Times reported that an ICE officer shot a 28-year-old Venezuelan delivery driver during a traffic stop in Austin, seriously wounding him before federal officials transferred him into immigration custody.

NBC News reported that the ICE officer Austin did not wear a body camera during the encounter even though he had one issued to him, raising questions about how officials will reconstruct the shooting.

The man has a bullet still lodged near his spine and limited movement on his left side, CNN reported.

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations branch is leading the federal review of the shooting with assistance from the FBI while Austin police and the Texas Rangers are conducting separate investigations, Border Report reported.

Dying on Border Patrol cameras 

MIT Technology Review reported that U.S. border surveillance towers equipped with cameras and artificial intelligence have failed to consistently detect migrants or prompt timely responses, including when people were dying in view of the cameras. The government spent billions of dollars building the system and promised it would help save lives.

Times of San Diego reported that at least 138 migrant remains were found within range of border surveillance cameras in California over four years, including many in locations where cameras likely had a clear view of the person's death.

Immigration arrests

ICE officers redetained a previously deported Mexican man who had testified for U.S. prosecutors in drug cases after a federal judge ordered the government to return him safely to the U.S., El País reported.

ICE officers detained a U.S. citizen in Evanston, Illinois, after mistaking him for someone they had a warrant to arrest, and the encounter left him with injuries to his head, neck and teeth, The New York Times reported.

The Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. immigration officers detained Nicaraguan journalists and political dissidents who fled persecution, including people the U.S. helped free from Nicaraguan prisons in 2023.

An ICE vehicle ran over and seriously injured a Guatemalan man as he fled agents during an immigration operation in Albany, Georgia, WALB reported.

Third-country removals 

Mother Jones reported that ICE  told 12 Somali men that the agency was taking them to their home country but then flew them to Guantánamo Bay, where several described constant shackling and frigid conditions.

8News Now reported that ICE officers arrested a Southern California woman with a pending asylum case after Las Vegas police booked her on a domestic battery allegation after she slapped her husband at a Las Vegas buffet. Prosecutors declined to pursue the charge, and ICE later deported her to Armenia.

Palabra reported that the U.S. is deporting Mexican citizens to Guatemala and they're later becoming stranded in Tapachula after crossing back into their home country.

The Detroit Free Press reported that ICE officers arrested the foster son of a retired Detroit-area judge and placed him on a flight to a country where he has no ties. The judge said the officers tricked the family into thinking the young man would receive only an ankle monitor.

Authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a Phoenix man who had spoken publicly about conditions in a hotel-turned-prison where he and other immigrants sent from the U.S. have been held there since their removal, and his attorneys called the arrest retaliation, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk urged the U.S. to stop deporting migrants to countries where they could face irreparable harm and to guarantee due process in third-country removals, Tal Cual reported.

Police in Equatorial Guinea hooded, bound and beat two men the U.S. deported under a third-country removal arrangement at a hotel that authorities use as a detention site, The New York Times reported.

Federal court updates 

CBS News reported that a federal appeals court ruled immigration officials must give people a meaningful chance to challenge deportation to countries where they have no ties, largely upholding a lower court decision that found the administration’s third-country deportation policy unlawful.

A federal judge ordered immigration officers in Los Angeles and surrounding counties to obtain warrants for civil arrests unless they determine a person will likely escape before they can get one, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A federal judge temporarily blocked warrantless immigration raids at private construction sites in southern Alabama after ICE detained a U.S. citizen three times, and he brought a legal challenge, Reason reported.

The Marshall Project reported that a federal judge ordered independent monitoring of family detention sites after children spent more than 20 days in custody on average for five consecutive months.

A lawsuit alleges that the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection unlawfully labeled the Big Bend region a “high illegal entry” area to accelerate border construction despite a steep decline in apprehensions, The Texan reported.

A federal jury convicted a Customs and Border Protection officer of using his gun and badge to rob, sexually assault or attempt to sexually assault four Chinese sex workers in Chicago-area hotel rooms, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Immigration court updates 

The Miami Herald reported that the Board of Immigration Appeals made it harder for Venezuelans to win asylum by requiring judges to consider whether political changes after Nicolás Maduro’s removal reduce applicants’ risk of future persecution.

The New York Times reported that Board of Immigration Appeals judges overturned a ruling that blocked a former Ecuadorian interior minister’s deportation because he was likely to be tortured Within hours, U.S. officials deported him to Ecuador, where the government is holding him in a maximum security prison and officials told him that they would give a video of him stripped naked to the country's leader.

NPR reported that immigration courts moved some Maryland and Virginia cases to previously undisclosed hearing locations with little or no notice, increasing the risk that immigrants could miss hearings and receive deportation orders.

Detention conditions 

The Tucson Sentinel reported that an Iranian doctor at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona said foul-smelling tap water and a broken ice machine left people with little access to clean drinking water.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that people detained in Arkansas and held at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana described discolored water, poor food, limited access to legal resources and nightly deportation lists that left them uncertain about when ICE would remove them from the country.

KUT reported that a federal judge ordered ICE to release a 19-year-old Honduran mother after the agency held her for nearly six weeks without a hearing and separated her from her breastfeeding infant.

The Associated Press reported that ICE removed thousands of people with final deportation orders from its online detainee locator, making it harder for lawyers and relatives to find where the agency is holding them in custody.

The Intercept reported that CoreCivic reopened a former Leavenworth, Kansas, prison for ICE detention despite the facility’s history of chronic understaffing, overcrowding and violence.

Otay Mesa Detention Center received a visit from officials in late July and shut down detainee movement for hours, blocking lawyers’ access to clients and stranding a group in the dining area without access to a bathroom, Daylight San Diego reported.

Prosecuting ICE in Minnesota 

A Minnesota judge set ICE officer Christian Castro’s bail at $400,000, or $200,000 if he agreed to conditions including an extradition waiver, after authorities charged him with assault and false reporting tied to a January shooting, the Associated Press reported.

Sahan Journal reported that prosecutors said ICE officer Christian Castro made 394 calls from a Texas jail to someone in Mexico and expressed interest in living there.

Surveillance and targeting activists

El Diario de Juárez reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection held labor organizer Chris Smalls and two Mexican human rights activists for more than 12 hours after they lawfully crossed from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso following a peace summit, then released them.

404 Media reported that a secretive Border Patrol predictive-policing unit analyzes Americans’ financial activity and sends information to local police, who then stop people the government identifies for additional scrutiny even when officers do not suspect them of a specific crime.

The Philadelphia Police Department opened an investigation after two civil affairs officers attended a No ICE Philly meeting, making activists there feel surveilled, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The Washington Post reported that police in Summerville, South Carolina, charged a woman with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after she encouraged students planning an anti-ICE walkout, but a judge later dismissed the charge.

Federal prosecutors have struggled to convict anti-ICE protesters as some judges and grand juries have shown an unusual level of skepticism of the government's cases, The Marshall Project reported.

Union Del Barrio said on Instagram that ICE officers in City of Industry named and threatened community observers and their families when they were monitoring an operation on Sep. 23.

Other stories to watch 

An FBI memo warned that women allegedly created fake “tradwife” dating profiles to lure and identify immigration officers, though the memo offered little evidence that anyone successfully carried out the alleged scheme, The Guardian reported.

The State Bar of California seized a Chula Vista immigration consulting business after alleging its operator provided legal services without a law license, 10News reported.

U.S. officials rejected dozens of white South African applicants from a refugee program created for Afrikaners though more than 13,000 people have entered through the program, The Guardian reported.

The White House withdrew former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer’s nomination to lead ICE without giving a reason after his nomination stalled in the Senate, Al Jazeera reported.

Local outfitter Jessie Fuentes is continuing a yearslong fight to restore public access to the Rio Grande at Shelby Park after years of state and federal border-enforcement restrictions, Texas Monthly reported.

The Marshall Project reported that the Department of Homeland Security allowed about 170,000 Salvadorans with Temporary Protected Status to keep living and working in the U.S. for now without announcing a long-term decision when the status’ expiration date arrived.

Customs and Border Protection plans to build an 87-acre Border Patrol station near Three Points, Arizona, and has started an environmental review of the project, LOOKOUT reported.

The Associated Press reported that the administration changed how caregivers report suspected trafficking involving unaccompanied migrant children, a move advocates said could make it harder for some children to receive trafficking protections.

The New York Times reported that New York City public schools distributed a multilingual “Know Your Rights” comic that teaches students and families how to respond during encounters with ICE officers and other federal law enforcement.

Thanks for reading! Take care and stay well.

— Emma