Since 1997, the Flores Agreement established a 20-day limit on the time a minor can be held in detention. A recent report from ICE indicated at over 400 children were detained for more than this 20-day limit. Read the article here.
-
-
The Border Report explains that there are 2000 unaccompanied minors currently being housed in ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) in HHS (Health and Human Services). And that 25% of those unaccompanied minors (around 500 children) are now living in facilities near that southern border in Texas. The concern is that ICE may be preparing to deport these children (traveling without any adult family members).
-
-
Politico reports in this article that around 98 of the 700 immigration judges have retired, quit or been terminated. Immigration judges report to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General in the Executive branch. The Attorney General can overturn cases decided by immigration judges.
-
Here’s an AI summary of the Border Act of 2024.
The Border Act of 2024 (S. 4361), negotiated by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), was a proposed bipartisan bill that aimed to significantly reform the U.S. immigration and asylum systems. It was not enacted into law, as it failed to pass procedural votes in the Senate in February and May 2024.
The bill was originally part of a larger emergency spending package that included foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Key Provisions of the Lankford-Murphy Immigration Bill
The bill included major policy changes and substantial funding increases for border enforcement:
Border Security & Enforcement
- Emergency Border Authority: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary would gain new authority to “shut down” the border to most migrant entries if the average number of encounters reached specific thresholds (e.g., 4,000 in a single day, or an average of 5,000 over a seven-day period).
- Increased Staffing and Detention:
- Funded an increase in ICE detention capacity to 50,000 beds (from 41,500).
- Provided authority for DHS, ICE, and CBP to hire personnel using direct-hire procedures to address staffing shortages.
- Funded an additional 100 immigration judges and staff to help reduce a backlog of over two million cases.
- Border Wall Construction: The bill recapitalized over $650 million for constructing and reinforcing the border wall.
- Technology and Fentanyl: Included funding for 100 new inspection machines to detect fentanyl and other illicit drugs at ports of entry.
Asylum Process Changes
- Higher Asylum Standard: The bill would have created a higher, stricter standard for initial asylum screenings (known as the “credible fear” standard), making it more difficult for migrants to remain in the U.S. while their claims were adjudicated.
- Expedited Proceedings: Established new “provisional noncustodial removal proceedings” designed to process asylum claims within six months, using asylum officers instead of immigration courts to expedite the process.
- Criminal Bars: Individuals with certain criminal convictions (such as a DWI causing serious injury or death) would be immediately deported and barred from asylum eligibility.
- Limitations on Parole: The legislation aimed to significantly limit the use of humanitarian parole at land borders between ports of entry, while keeping the specific parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in place at official ports of entry.
Other Provisions
- Afghan Allies: Provided a pathway to conditional permanent residency for certain Afghan nationals who were evacuated after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
- Funding for Cities/States: Allocated $1.4 billion for cities and states providing services to newly arrived migrants.
Status of the Bill
The bill faced strong opposition from many Republicans, who argued it did not go far enough to secure the border and criticized it as a “nonstarter”. Some Democrats and immigration advocacy groups also opposed the bill, arguing that the asylum restrictions were too harsh and compromised humanitarian protections. Ultimately, the bill did not pass the Senate and has not become law.
-
A Brookings Institute survey from July 29, 2025 indicates that Americans have changed their opinions about immigration since the election of November 2024.
Here are the study highlights:
- Less than seven months into Trump’s second term, a majority of Americans disapproves of his record on immigration, and overall attitudes about immigration have made a U-turn.
- Americans have strong procedural objections to the way the Trump administration is carrying out its policies.
- Support for Trump’s immigration policy has been especially weak among the groups in which he made the greatest gains last November.
Read the entire report here.
-
Hart Research, after polling 802 reigstered U. S. voters in August 2025, reports that strong majorities reject arrests in each healthcare setting. Here are some highlights from the report:
We asked about:
hospitals (59% no, 32% yes),
doctors’ offices (58% no -35% yes), and
medical clinics (58% no -34% yes).
In addition, voters object to arrests in places of worship (67%-27%) and in schools (60%-33%).
In contrast, half of voters (51%) feel arrests in the workplace should be permitted
and 60% approve of arrests in immigrants’ homes.Read the entire report here.
-
This article describes how ICE flights (both shuffle flights within the U.S. and deportation flights) are affecting immigration inmates at the Aurora (near Denver, Colorado) Immigration Detention Center.
-
Human Rights First has created a new website to track and explain third-country deportations from the United States.
Here is the new Third-country Deportations Watch website.
Here’s the cheat sheet (chart) with an overview of third country deportations from the US.
Countries with current or pending agreements include these:
Belize | Costa Rica | Ecuador | El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea | Eswatini | Ghana | Guatemala
Honduras | Kosovo | Liberia | Libya | Mexico
Panama | Paraguay | Poland | Rwanda
South Sudan | Uganda | UzbekistanHere are some notes from their launch zoom about the new website:
- 288 men went to El Salvador (CECOT prison) – no family or lawyer contact – tortured
- 299 people to Panama – no communication with lawyers/family.
- 200+ people (including 81 children as young as 2 years old) to Costa Rica that were held in a pencil factory with substandard housing, food, healthcare.
- Ghanaian human rights lawyers are working to uncover the agreement between the US and Ghana b/c judges are unable to rule on individual cases without seeing the agreement. Some people have been brought to the border and released so that Ghana (and the Ghanaian legal system) will not have to deal with them.
- Third-country deportation practices ignore “non-refoulement” provisions in U.S. asylum law/treaties – which agrees not to send asylum-seekers to countries that could harm them.
- Experts fear that the US and Europe will create more universal third-country deportation agreements that will become standard practice and will be impossible to roll back.
-
A recent NPR podcast shares these statistics about U.S. doctors:
- 25% (325,000) of all doctors practicing in the US are foreign born and trained
- 50% of all primary care and oncology doctors are foreign born
- Rural locations have a high % of foreign-born doctors
- 11,000 of all U.S. doctors are here with H1B visas
So far, the U.S. government has not agreed to waive the new $100,000 application fee for new H1B visas for doctors.
Immigration Insight 