Edited by Steve Volk ([email protected])
Oberlin Community Supporting Immigrants (OCSI) does not endorse or oppose candidates for elected office. We aim to provide information, education, and analysis regarding the U.S. immigration system.
CONTACT OCSI:
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://oberlincommunitysi.org/
Know Your Rights: You can’t protect your rights unless you know what they are. Here’s a 2-page handout prepared by OCSI. If you want a comprehensive resource library of KYR information, updated for 2026, Austin Kocher provides one here.
OCSI Corner
Do you need a speaker on immigration of “know your rights” for your local church, synagogue, or community group? Contact us at the email below. We can help!
March with us in Oberlin’s Big Parade, Saturday, May 2. OCSI will be marching behind our banner. Come walk with us! Gather in the Mudd Library parking lot at 11:30 AM. The march begins at noon and visit us at our table in Tappan Square right after.
ACTION ITEMS
Free Nkemasosa: Nkemasosa is a Columbus man currently detained by ICE in a New York State immigration jail. He is the father of an 8 month year-old baby and the sole provider for his family. He was granted a $10,000 immigration bond and the Ohio Immigrant Alliance is mobilizing to try to raise it so he can get home to his wife and family ASAP. For more information and to donate, click here.
Between May 23 and May 30, communities across Ohio are coming together for a statewide week of interfaith vigils in solidarity with people held in civil immigration detention (a.k.a. ICE jail). Faith leaders, organizers, and community members will raise their voices, hold space for reflection, and stand in collective action. This coordinated week of action calls for: An end to ICE detention, transparency on detention facility funding, and an end to 287(g) agreements. More information here.
As Congress debates funding for ICE and CBP, your representatives need to hear from people who refuse to look away as children are harmed. Send a message to your members of Congress to oppose any funding for ICE and CBP. They shouldn’t get one more dime from us — and Congress should take back the $70 billion slush fund that they handed over last year.
PICK THREE (No time for all the reporting? Here are three important stories from the past week that you might have overlooked):
Justice Dept. Targets Hundreds of Citizens in New Push for Denaturalization (New York Times, April 23, 2026): The Trump administration is assigning denaturalization cases to regular prosecutors, which could lead to a surge of people stripped of U.S. citizenship.
Trump Steps Up a Campaign against Teaching English to Immigrant Kids (Jim Geraghty, Washington Post, April 21, 2026): The administration plans to dissolve the office that supports English instruction.
Immigration Courts Are Hiding Behind Locked Doors, Closed Video Conferencing, According to Minnesota Lawsuit (MinnPost, April 20, 2026): The case has national, as well as regional, implications. A successful injunction is expected to apply to all of the country’s immigration courts.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Ad on a Justice Department website encouraging application to be a “deportation judge,” what formerly was known as an “Immigration Judge” (Story here)
LOCAL AND OHIO NEWS
Bipartisan Former Ohio AGs Urge U.S. Supreme Court to Keep Immigration Protections for Haitians (Ohio Capital Journal, April 24, 2026): In an amicus brief, a bipartisan group of former Ohio attorneys general urge the court to reject the Trump administration’s bid to terminate TPS protections.
We Found Home in Springfield after Terror. Save Us from Trump’s Cowardly Bullying (Viles Dorsainvil, Columbus Dispatch, April 21, 2026): Our political leaders must stand up for what’s right.
Gratis Police Chief, Officer on Leave after ICE ‘Wellness checks’ at Cincinnati Schools (Dayton Daily News, April 21, 2026): The Preble County village of Gratis placed its police chief and another officer on administrative leave after they participated in a federal law enforcement operation at Cincinnati schools.
Ending Immigration Jail in Ohio: How and Why (Lynn Tramonte, April 2026): This downloadable report It describes how detained immigrants organized inside the Morrow and Butler County Jails during the first Trump term, ending two ICE contracts, and tracks the growing grassroots movement to cancel the Butler County Jail’s ICE contract, again.
RESISTING, PROTESTING, AND ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE
Detention Watch Toolkit (Communities Not Cages): Toolkit for local and state intervention regarding the construction of DHS warehousing of immigrants.
US Citizens Shot by ICE Beg Congress to Rein in Federal Immigration Agents (Ohio Capital Journal, April 23, 2026): Nearly all Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee failed to show up for a hearing convened by Democrats to highlight President Donald Trump’s aggressive tactics in his mass deportation campaign that have ensnared U.S. citizens.
Detained Immigrants Launch Hunger Strike at Michigan ICE Facility (MLive, April 22, 2026): Immigrants being held at the largest detention center in Michigan launched a hunger strike Monday, April 20, over living conditions and access to medical care at the facility, according to advocates and lawyers.
Habeas Petitions: What They Are and How They Help Immigrants in ICE Detention (Hawai’I Public Radio, April 21, 2026): Filing habeas petitions not only helps individual clients but also is a way of challenging current policies.
Outside ICE’s Newark Detention Center, Our Volunteers Do What the System Won’t (Cynthia Galeota and Andrew Sprung, NJ.com, April 21, 2026): Lacking an indoor intake area for visitors, an ecosystem of volunteer support emerged outside on the pavement. It is now a hub of mutual aid for families deprived not only of loved ones, but often of their primary wage earners, offering warmth, shelter, dignity and safety.
In Red States, Anti-Immigrant Bills Are Failing as Businesses Push Back (Washington Post, April 19, 2026): Most of the roughly 200 bills targeting immigrants around the country this year have stalled or died, with help from business and Christian groups.
THE COURTS AND LEGAL ACTIONS
Court Blocks Trump’s Executive Order Suspending Asylum Access (Guardian, April 24, 2026): Appellate panel finds president can’t circumvent laws that allow people to apply for asylum at the US-Mexico border.
Texas Police Can Arrest People Suspected of Entering Country Illegally, Federal Court Rules (Texas Tribune, April 24, 2026): The conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Senate Bill 4, the 2023 law that lets state police arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally.
Justices Debate Rights of Lawful Permanent Residents against Backdrop of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown (SCOTUSblog, April 23, 2026): in Blanche v. Lau, the justices considered a challenge to how immigration officers classify lawful permanent residents who have been accused but not yet convicted of committing a crime that puts them at risk of being removed from the country.
Court Blocks California Law Requiring Federal Agents to Wear Some Form of ID (Guardian, April 22, 2026): Trump administration had filed suit against the 2025 law, arguing it would threaten officers’ safety.
Judge Blocks DOJ Effort to Sanction Immigration Lawyer Who Tried to Stop Client’s Deportation (Politico, April 20, 2026): “His legal argument failed, but he made a good faith argument of what he contends the law should be, and this is not a sanctionable offense,” the judge wrote.
Ordered Free, Still Locked Up (Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2026): Judges fume as Trump Administration Holds ICE Detainees.
ICE BUCKET
Dress Code Violations for ICE Jail Visitors? (NJ.com and Facebook): people were being turned away from visiting their loved ones at Delaney Hall in Newark due to dress code violations. Immigration support organizations were there, with clothes, to help.
ICE Tells Officers to Curtail Court Arrests, Stop Entering Homes without Warrants (NBC News, April 23, 2026): The Trump administration has curbed some of its most aggressive immigration enforcement policies, officials say.
ICE Deported Man who Says He’s a U.S. Citizen after Traffic Stop in Central Texas (Texas Tribune, April 23, 2026): Brian José Morales García has a birth certificate showing he was born in Denver. ICE agents accused him of lying and wouldn’t allow him to show them his birth certificate and Social Security card.
Senate GOP Unveils $70B Immigration Plan to Circumvent Democrats in Bid to End DHS Shutdown (CNN, April 21, 2026): The new proposed funding would ensure the agencies are funded through the remainder of Trump’s term.
EMERGING POLICY AND THREATS TO IMMIGRANTS
Detention and Deportation and Death
Woman, Her 5 Children Released from longest ICE Detention of a Family under Trump (Reuters, April 23, 2026): They had been in detention over 10 months until U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas ordered their release.
More Immigrants Are Being Held in Detention for Over a Year (NPR, April 22, 2026): NPR followed one family’s ordeal.
Wife of Active-Duty U.S. Army Soldier Detained by ICE in Texas at Immigration Appointment (CBS News, April 20, 2026): An active-duty U.S. Army soldier who has served in the military for 27 years, including in Afghanistan, said he still does not “understand why” his wife was detained by ICE last week in Texas.
ICE Deported 174 DACA Recipients through Most of Last Year, Agency Head Says in Letter (Guardian, April 18, 2026): So-called Dreamers – undocumented immigrants who arrived as children – were allowed to stay in US under Obama-era program.
Authoritarianism, Lawlessness, Racism, and Cruelty
Immigration Agent Is Charged with Assaulting a Protester (New York Times, April 21, 2026): An immigration officer in southwest Colorado who was caught on video grabbing a protester by the hair and hurling her down an embankment last October was charged with assault and criminal mischief on Tuesday, the local district attorney said.
Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo (New York Times, April 21, 2026): A U.S. aid worker said that the Afghans, who were evacuated to Qatar, would face a choice between moving to the Democratic Republic of Congo and living under the Taliban.
She Raised Concerns about Her Company’s Contracts with ICE. Then She Lost Her Job (NPR, April 21, 2026): Billie Little was concerned that Thomson Reuters, which is known for its legal database Westlaw, its media company Reuters, and its role as a major data broker, was cooperating with ICE. She was part of a committee flagging this and asking the company for greater transparency.
Roy Unveils Immigration Bill Dubbed “MAMDANI Act” (The Hill, April 20, 2026): The Texas Republican’s bill (Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists Act” proposes amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow for the deportation, denaturalization, denial of citizenship or entry to any migrant that is a member of a socialist party, communist party, the Chinese Communist Party or Islamic fundamentalist party.
Florida Seeks to Bar Undocumented Immigrants from State Colleges (NBCMiami, April 16, 2026): The rule would only apply to Florida’s 28 state colleges, not to its 12 state universities.
Attacks on All Immigrants
Trump Reposts Tirade Against Chinese and Indian Immigrants (New York times, April 23, 2026): The president touched off a furor with his post sharing a podcast episode in which the host referred to China and India as “hellhole” places.
BY THE NUMBERS
Trump’s Immigration Message Changed. Voters’ Opinions Have Not (Politico, April 18, 2026): A new POLITICO poll finds half of Americans — including one quarter of Trump’s 2024 voters — said his mass deportations campaign is too aggressive.
New ICE Arrest Statistics Shed Light on Who the Agency is Targeting in American Communities (American Immigration Council, April 17, 2026): For much of last fall to winter, most of ICE’s daily arrests occurred “at-large” in American communities. From December 2025 through January 2026, ICE arrested on average 1,264 people per day, over a 300% increase from the year before.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The 85-Year Old Widow Snagged by Trump’s Immigration Crackdown (New York Times, April 25, 2026): In her first interview since being deported, Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, the French widow of a former G.I., recounted her experience in ICE detention.
The One Part of the Court System Where Trump’s Takeover Plans Have Been a Smashing Success (Shirin Ali, Slate, April 23, 2026): Immigration court and the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Trump Slammed the Door Shut on 300,000 Asylum Seekers. What Happened to Them? (Daniela Mohor and Eric Reidy, Guardian, April 23, 2026): US policy shift leaves migrants in limbo to retrace perilous journeys south, searching for stability.Separation, a graphic novel by Jake Halpern with illustrations by Michael Sloan (New York Times, October 21, 2025): Follows one Honduran family as they navigate America’s shifting immigration landscape.