
What has changed with immigration under Trump and what is still playing out?
Immigration arrests
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it made an average of 710 immigration arrests daily from Thursday through Monday, up from a daily average of 311 in a 12-month period through September under President Joe Biden. If that rate holds, it would surpass ICE's previous high mark set in the Obama administration, when daily arrests averaged 636 in 2013.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Numbers spiked starting Sunday and included highly publicized operations, including in Atlanta, Dallas and, most prominently, Chicago.
Advertisement
The Trump administration has highlighted participation of other agencies in ICE operations, a departure from Biden. They include the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — all part of the Justice Department — and the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol.
Emile Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, observed arrests in Chicago on Sunday in a sign of the Justice Department's growing involvement.
Trump expanded arrest priorities to anyone in the country illegally, not just people with criminal convictions, public safety or national security threats and migrants stopped at the border. Still, some said it was business as usual for ICE — at least so far.
'There's nothing unique about it,' said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a research and advocacy group that favors immigration restrictions.
He anticipates more enforcement in next few weeks and believes Congress will approve funding for up to 80,000 beds, about double the current level. ICE needs the space to hold people while any legal proceedings play out and while it arranges deportations.
Advertisement
Deportations
ICE hasn't said how many people it has deported since Trump took office gain, but the administration has highlighted removal flights, including the use of military planes.
Under Biden, ICE deported more than 270,000 people in a 12-month period that ended in September. That was the highest annual tally in a decade, helped by an increase in deportation flights. The Biden administration did not use military planes.
In an episode that may signal more hardball diplomacy with governments that resist or refuse to take back their citizens, Trump said Sunday that he would raise tariffs 25% on Colombia after President Gustavo Petro refused to let two military planes land with deportees. Trump put the tariffs measures on hold after Petro backed down.
A C-27 military transport plane landed Monday in Guatemala, with 80 deportees in shackles and handcuffs. 'It's my first attempt of the year and I don't know if I will try again because it's hard,' said Jacobo Dueñas, 38, who was arrested Friday on the Texas border.
The Trump administration made it easier for ICE to deport people without appearing before an immigration judge by expanding 'expedited removal' authority nationwide for anyone in the country up to two years. The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the fast-track deportations in court.
Some steps that could have a major impact have yet to be seen on a large scale
The administration ended a policy to avoid arrests at 'sensitive locations,' including schools, hospitals and places of worship. It said it may deport people who entered the country legally on parole, a presidential authority that Biden used more than any president.
It also threatened to punish 'sanctuary' jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Advertisement
Border enforcement
Trump ended use of a border app to allow migrants to enter the country on two-year permits with eligibility to work, canceling tens of thousands of appointments into early February for people stranded in Mexico. Nearly 1 million people entered the U.S. at land crossings with Mexico by using the CBP One app.
Trump also ended a policy that allowed more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to fly to the country on two-year permits if they had a financial sponsor.
Other actions will time to play out. Trump secured Mexico's approval to reinstate a hallmark policy of his first term, 'Remain in Mexico,' which requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
The Pentagon began deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to the border last week but it was unclear if they will break from supporting roles they have played under presidents since George W. Bush, including ground and aerial surveillance, building barriers and repairing vehicles.
An 1878 law prohibits military involvement in civilian law enforcement, but Trump and his aides have signaled he may invoke wartime powers. Trump said in his order that the Defense Department can assist with detention and transportation.
What else?
Trump stopped resettling refugees who are vetted abroad before entering the United States until further review, a program that he largely dismantled in his first term and was resurrected under Biden. Groups that provide temporary housing, job training and other support said the State Department told them Friday to stop work immediately.
The Justice Department also told legal aid groups to stop work on federal programs that help people in immigration courts and detention centers navigate complex laws.
Advertisement
Trump said he was ending automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, a precedent established by constitutional amendment in 1868. A federal judge in Seattle has put it on hold.
Associated Press writers Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Los Angeles Times
2 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
It's time to save the whales again
Diving in a kelp forest in Monterey Bay recently, I watched a tubby 200-pound harbor seal follow a fellow diver, nibbling on his flippers. The diver, a graduate student, was using sponges to collect DNA samples from the ocean floor. Curious seals, he told me, can be a nuisance. When he bags his sponges and places them in his collection net, they sometimes bite into them, puncturing the bags and spoiling his samples. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, coming closer than 50 yards to seals and dolphins is considered harassment, but they're free to harass you, which seems only fair given the centuries of deadly whaling and seal hunting that preceded a generational shift in how we view the world around us. The shift took hold in 1969, the year a massive oil spill coated the Santa Barbara coastline and the Cuyahoga River, in Cleveland, caught fire. Those two events helped spark the first Earth Day, in 1970, and the shutdown of America's last whaling station in 1971. Protecting the environment from pollution and from loss of wilderness and wildlife quickly moved from a protest issue to a societal ethic as America's keystone environmental legislation was passed at around the same time, written by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. Those laws include the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) , the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1972) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), which goes further than the Endangered Species Act (1973) in protecting all marine mammals, not just threatened ones, from harassment, killing or capture by U.S. citizens in U.S. waters and on the high seas. All these 'green' laws and more are under attack by the Trump administration, its congressional minions and longtime corporate opponents of environmental protections, including the oil and gas industry. Republicans' disingenuous argument for weakening the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act is that the legislation has worked so well in rebuilding wildlife populations that it's time to loosen regulations for a better balance between nature and human enterprise. When it comes to marine mammal populations, that premise is wrong. On July 22, at a House Natural Resources subcommittee meeting, Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska introduced draft legislation that would scale back the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Among other things, his proposal would limit the ability of the federal government to take action against 'incidental take,' the killing of whales, dolphins and seals by sonic blasts from oil exploration, ship and boat strikes or by drowning as accidental catch (also known as bycatch) in fishing gear. Begich complained that marine mammal protections interfere with 'essential projects like energy development, port construction, and even fishery operations.' Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the ranking member on the House Resources Committee, calls the legislation a 'death sentence' for marine mammals. It's true that the marine mammal law has been a success in many ways. Since its passage, no marine mammal has gone extinct and some species have recovered dramatically. The number of northern elephant seals migrating to California beaches to mate and molt grew from 10,000 in 1972 to about 125,000 today. There were an estimated 11,000 gray whales off the West Coast when the Marine Mammal Protection Act became law; by 2016, the population peaked at 27,000. But not all species have thrived. Historically there were about 20,000 North Atlantic right whales off the Eastern Seaboard. They got their name because they were the 'right' whales to harpoon — their bodies floated for easy recovery after they were killed. In 1972 they were down to an estimated 350 individuals. After more than half a century of federal legal protection, the population is estimated at 370. They continue to suffer high mortality rates from ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear and other causes, including noise pollution and greater difficulty finding prey in warming seas. Off Florida, a combination of boat strikes and algal pollution threaten some 8,000-10,000 manatees. The population's recovery (from about 1,000 in 1979) has been significant enough to move them off the endangered species list in 2017, but since the beginning of this year alone, nearly 500 have died. Scientists would like to see them relisted, but at least they're still covered by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A 2022 study in the Gulf of Mexico found that in areas affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill 12 years earlier, the dolphin population had declined 45% and that it might take 35 years to recover. In the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, loss of sea ice is threatening polar bears (they're considered marine mammals), bowhead and beluga whales, walruses, ringed seals and harp seals. On the West Coast the number of gray whales — a Marine Mammal Act success story and now a cautionary tale — has crashed by more than half in the last decade to fewer than 13,000, according to a recent report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the nation's lead ocean agency, is an endangered species in its own right in the Trump era). Declining prey, including tiny shrimp-like amphipods, in the whales' summer feeding grounds in the Arctic probably caused by warming water are thought to be a major contributor to their starvation deaths and reduced birth rates. The whale's diving numbers are just one signal that climate change alone makes maintaining the Marine Mammal Act urgent. Widespread marine heat waves linked to a warming ocean are contributing to the loss of kelp forests that sea otters and other marine mammals depend on. Algal blooms off California, and for the first time ever, Alaska, supercharged by warmer waters and nutrient pollution, are leading to the deaths of thousands of dolphins and sea lions. What the Trump administration and its antiregulation, anti-environmental-protection supporters fail to recognize is that the loss of marine mammals is an indicator for the declining health of our oceans and the natural world we depend on and are a part of. This time, saving the whales will be about saving ourselves. David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. His next book, 'Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp,' is scheduled to be published in 2026.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Will Trump contain his jealousy of Zelensky or is Ukraine's president walking into another White House ambush?
Will Trump contain his jealousy of Zelensky or is Ukraine's president walking into another White House ambush?Source The Independent


Los Angeles Times
33 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
After Trump greets Putin with red carpet treatment, Ukrainians feel betrayed
KYIV, Ukraine — In Kyiv, Ukrainians living under near daily Russian bombardment watched with astonishment as their country's most important ally rolled out a red carpet in Alaska for the man they blame for more than three years of war, bloodshed and loss. Natalya Lypei, 66, a Kyiv resident, was taken aback: The images flashing on her phone screen showed President Trump greeting Vladimir Putin warmly and clapping as the Russian leader approached him, after having been escorted into the country by four American fighter jets. Trump also ignored the arrest warrant issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court that has kept him mostly confined at home or in nations that are strong allies of Moscow. 'How can you welcome a tyrant like that?' she asked, echoing the views of many Kyiv residents. The red carpet treatment, the lack of concrete decisions for Ukraine and, most significant, neglecting the significance of sanctions — a policy that could turn the tide in Kyiv's favor — have felt like a betrayal for Ukrainians who have borne enormous suffering in the almost 3½ years since Russia's full-scale invasion. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian service members have been killed or wounded, thousands of civilians have been killed in Russian strikes, and a fifth of the country is under occupation, severing families, properties and Ukraine's territorial integrity. On Ukrainian social media, memes of Putin and Trump walking down a red carpet strewn with dead Ukrainian bodies were widely shared. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had anticipated that the meeting would be a boon for Putin and that there would be little in the way of results. Speaking to reporters in the days leading up to the summit, he said it would end up being a public relations victory for the Russian leader. Above all else, he said, Putin was seeking a photo on American soil — which he got in Friday's meeting. It was the first time in a decade that Putin had stepped foot in the U.S., ending international isolation spurred by the 2022 Ukraine invasion; in other words, it was a win. For Lypei, whose serviceman son was killed last year, it was like attending another funeral, a fresh loss. This time, she said, her country's hopes for a just peace. 'It hurts me a lot that my child died in a full-scale war, and today we saw a new funeral,' she said. Her 34-year-old son fought with Ukraine's 79th Brigade and was killed in the Donetsk region, one of the areas Putin wants Ukraine to cede to Russia as a condition for a truce. 'I do not wish anyone that sorrow, that sadness, those tears,' she said. Natalya Cucil, 60, another Kyiv resident, said she was surprised that Trump did not produce any results from the meeting, despite his stated efforts to end the war. 'There are no results and we don't know if there will be, although we always expect something and hope for it,' she said. Pensioner Anatolii Kovalenko, 72, said no matter what was discussed between the two leaders, it is clear his country's adversary has won in the sphere of public relations. 'Putin won this meeting 100%,' he said. Kullab and Babenko write for the Associated Press.