- Early Thursday morning, Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution to pass funding for DHS through reconciliation, in an effort to avoid policy changes demanded by Democrats. The vote was only the first step in a long and complicated process, the same process Congress used to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that provided $170 billion for immigration enforcement. Democrats in the Senate have been blocking passage of funding for ICE and CBP unless policy changes are made to protect civil rights, and Senate negotiators had previously reached an agreement to fund other agencies within DHS while they continued to negotiate over funding for immigration enforcement agencies. However, House Republicans rejected that agreement just before the Easter Recess. House Republicans are expected to vote on the Senate resolution next week.
- Todd Lyons, the Acting Director of ICE, has announced his resignation effective at the end of May. Lyons, who had previously served as ICE’s Boston Field Office Director, has been under fire from both sides since taking the top spot in the agency. On the one hand, the administration tasked ICE with making 3,000 immigration arrests every day. On the other hand, the efforts to meet those goals resulted in widespread and highly public civil rights violations, leading to the current stalemate in Congress over DHS funding. The administration has not yet announced who they intend to take over as ICE Director.
- Seven of the nine workers detained at an Allston car wash in November have sued the federal government for violations of both their constitutional rights and the Immigration and Nationality Act. Many of those arrested that day had legal status while others were in process, but none of the detainees were allowed to retrieve their documentation. The workers are being represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights and the law firm of Zimmer, Citron & Clarke.
- The federal government is ramping up its efforts to strip naturalized US citizens of their status. During Trump’s first term, his administration aimed to review 700,000 previous naturalizations, but failed to reach its goal of bringing 1,600 denaturalization cases to the courts. Immediately after coming back into office, the administration reupped this push with one of Trump’s day-one executive orders, which called for “the devotion of adequate resources” to pursue denaturalizations. Denaturalizations are uncommon; between 2017 and 2025, the US stripped citizenship from around 120 individuals. These latest efforts have identified over 380 people for investigation in the first wave.
- In the second such case, local prosecutors in Colorado have charged an immigration officer for violence against a protestor. The incident occurred at a protest outside an immigration detention facility in Durango, Colorado at the end of October when an officer with Customs and Border Protection placed a protester in a chokehold. This follows state charges filed in Minnesota earlier this month against an ICE agent accused of pointing his gun at occupants of a car. The officer in the Minnesota case is currently the subject of a nationwide arrest warrant.