ICE immigration enforcement crackdown

1. On the street

On Sunday 20 September in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, a witness saw two immigration agents pinning a Black man to the ground, one with a knee on his back, as the man shouted: “I’m a citizen, leave me alone.” He was a US citizen. Police said he told them he had head, face and neck injuries; the mayor said he was treated in hospital for minor injuries.5

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said officers had “encountered an individual who resembled the target” of an operation, and that he “was not cooperative and refused to identify himself”.5

The same day, in Austin, Texas, an ICE agent shot and seriously wounded a 28-year-old Venezuelan man at a traffic stop while he worked as a DoorDash delivery driver.5 Protesters gathered at the scene to demand transparency.4 In Michigan, authorities are investigating the death of a 36-year-old Guatemalan man who crashed his car into a tree at high speed after reportedly trying to flee immigration officers.5

2. In detention

“Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration jail in the Florida Everglades run by Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for the federal government, closed in June after a year. A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s own inspector general has now found that guards repeatedly locked detainees in outdoor metal cages, a practice it said “does not align with standards for humane treatment”.1

Records showed 79 occasions from July 2025 to January 2026 when detainees were put in the cages, for up to two hours at a time. Staff called them “calming areas” and said detainees asked to spend time in them; inspectors found at least one case where a cage was used as punishment. DeSantis’s office had dismissed the claims as “fabrications” when Amnesty International first reported them. Responding to the report, its communications manager, Alex Lanfranconi, said the area “adheres to all federal standards for criminal confinement”, adding: “We’d make it even smaller if we could.”1

A separate Guardian investigation found that ICE was detaining a record number of pregnant women. ICE says it has no updated information on miscarriages after 3 October 2025. Lawmakers and lawyers have warned that pregnant detainees are not getting basic prenatal care.2

3. In court: the children

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, who is seen as the mastermind and enforcer behind Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, is leading a drive across at least five government departments to speed up the removal of undocumented children, the Guardian has learned. Almost 200,000 children have been ordered removed by immigration judges since Trump returned, and such orders have doubled since January 2025. Of the children ordered removed, 70% were under 13.7

Sources warned of a White House push to hurry children in large numbers, without lawyers, before asylum officers and immigration judges who are “either inclined or are under pressure to take a hard line”. The White House did not deny that Miller is leading the effort but said it was not new, and framed it as an anti-trafficking effort: agencies are “working to locate and rescue these children”, a spokeswoman said.7

4. Sent away

US law bars sending people back to countries where they are likely to be persecuted. Human rights lawyers say the administration gets round this by deporting them to third countries instead, which often send them on to the places they fled. The US has struck 35 such deals and pledged at least $410m. About 20,000 people have been bussed to Mexico and at least 5,000 flown elsewhere.6

Equatorial Guinea has taken at least 66 people, and received $7.5m. About 30 are held in a run-down hotel near Malabo. On 11 September, according to witnesses and human rights lawyers, two of them, Ahmed Soliman, 31, from Egypt, and Samson Birhane, 47, from Eritrea, were bound, had bags put over their heads, and were beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs. They were taken to a prison. US judges had ruled that both would face persecution or torture if sent home. ICE said: “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”3

On Friday 18 September a federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the third-country policy was unlawful, because people were not given enough notice or the chance to challenge their removal. The government has 90 days to appeal and is expected to. The Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel said: “The third country deportation policy continues.”6