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!
Steve Volk, “What We Owe Our Immigrants in Ohio,” Ohio Capital Journal (March 27, 2026): It is time we put aside the fiction that we bear no responsibility for an immigration system that is colossally broken or that we owe no thanks or debt of gratitude to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have put roofs over our heads, food on our plates, and, more often than not, brought joy to our hearts.
ACTION ITEMS
Keep up the pressure: Tell your lawmakers “No Funding for ICE until the armed intimidation and violence stops!” Sign the Brady United petition here.
No Warehouses for ICE Detention Centers! Sign the MoveOn petition here.
PICK THREE (No time for all the reporting? Here are three important stories from the past week that you might have overlooked):
Trump Has Detained the Parents of More than 11,000 U.S. Citizen Kids (ProPublica, March 23, 2026): Because American-born kids can’t legally join their parents in immigration detention, some end up with friends or strangers when their parents are detained or deported.
Trump Admin Confirms 91 Wrongful Deportations of Asylum Seekers (David Kurtz, Talking Points Memo, March 23, 2026): The dramatic increase in the number of known wrongful deportations in the case from about a dozen to nearly 100 was an astonishing development in a case where the government has insisted that the number of such deportations was relatively small.
Can Ohio Learn from an Immigration Crackdown a Century Ago? (Rob Moore, Ohio Capital Journal, March 23, 2026): On balance, restricting immigration leads to fewer consumers, fewer workers, fewer entrepreneurs, fewer inventions, fewer ideas, fewer skills, and less of an edge for Ohio’s economy.
IMAGE OF THE WEEK
New Yorker cartoon by Ivan Ehlers
LOCAL AND OHIO NEWS
Lawsuit against ICE from ACLU of Ohio Alleges Warrantless Arrests, Arrests of Citizens, Other Abuses (Ohio Capital Journal, March 26, 2026): Those detained reported being mocked and mistreated by agents who apparently were paid bonuses for locking people up — regardless of whether the arrests were proper, the suit said.
What Ending Haitian TPS Could Mean for Springfield’s Economy (Haitian Times, March 24, 2026): Springfield’s economic activity might be stalled as the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that has allowed Haitian immigrants to live and work in the community remains in legal limbo.
ICE Officers Deployed to Cleveland Hopkins Airport to Support TSA Amid Shutdown Staffing Shortages (Cleveland.com, March 23, 2026): Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers, criticized the decision to send ICE agents to airports.
How Franklin County Jails Cooperate with Immigration Enforcement (Columbus Dispatch, March 23, 2026): The Franklin County jails are cooperating with federal immigration officials and at times, hold people past when they’ve paid bond or their criminal case is dismissed, according to court records and local immigration attorneys. [See follow-up: Franklin County Jails’ ICE Policy Under Review After Drawing Criticism (Columbus Dispatch, March 26, 2026).]
Lorain County Deputies Take 13 Central American Men into Custody in Labor Trafficking Bust (Chronicle Telegram, March 20, 2026): According to a news release from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office, deputies assisted ICE and Border Patrol agents in the arrest of 13 people, nine from Guatemala and four from Mexico who were taken into ICE custody as non-residents.
RESISTING, PROTESTING, AND ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE
Chicago’s ICE Playbook Spreads as Cities Challenge Trump’s Crackdown (Politico, March 28, 2026): Blue-state leaders are swapping executive orders, legislative strategies and public warnings.
Florida’s Immigration Crackdown Is Showing Cracks: ‘We’re Hurting People’ (New York Times, March 27, 2026): Some conservative sheriffs have raised concerns about the aggressive enforcement tactics that Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has embraced.
ICE Surge in Willmar [MN] Created Unexpected Bonds Between Neighbors (MPR News, March 26, 2026): When director of community growth at the City of Willmar, Pablo Obregon, heard about Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, he began coordinating educational meetings to teach people their rights when confronted by an immigration officer.
New Jersey Becomes the 10th State with a Law Barring Local ICE Contracts (Blotsmag.org, March 25, 2026):
ICE Made Their Neighbors ‘Prisoners in Their Own Homes’. So 130 Memphis Residents Signed Up to Deliver Food (Guardian, March 25, 2026): As US raids spread, a grassroots pantry delivers food, medicine and basics to immigrant families too afraid to leave home.
Her Husband Is a Double Amputee in ICE Prison. She Confronted Kristi Noem Over Its Cruel Conditions: ‘I Have a Fire Inside’ (Guardian, March 25, 2026): Mildred Danis-Taylor dropped everything to advocate for the release of her husband, Rodney Taylor. A brutal year of legal and health challenges led her to Capitol Hill.
How the Sanctuary Movement Became the Faithful’s Answer to ICE Raids (Religion News Service, March 23, 2026): The sanctuary movement has deep biblical roots, but it has evolved from the 1980s in important ways.
Mapping ICE’s Growing Detention Footprint, and the Communities Fighting Back (March 23, 2026): The Trump administration’s unprecedented expansion of migrant detention facilities is igniting fierce opposition in communities across the political and geographic spectrum.
Surfers Hold ‘Paddle Out’ in La Jolla to Protest Immigration Actions, ICE Killings (La Jolla Village News, March 22, 2026): A group of surfers held a paddle out Sunday morning — an action typically reserved for mourning the death of a beloved community member — to protest the Trump administration’s weaponization of immigration agencies.
How an Anti-ICE Church Protest Became Fodder for Trump’s Propaganda Machine (HuffPost, March 21, 2026): Eight activists arrested in Minnesota told HuffPost how it feels to be targeted by Donald Trump’s war on dissent — and they have a warning.
THE COURTS AND LEGAL ACTIONS
Appeals Court Lets Trump Administration Hold Many Immigration Detainees without Bond (CBS News, March 25, 2026): In the past, undocumented immigrants who lived in the U.S. for years had typically been eligible for bond hearings where they could ask an immigration judge to let them fight their deportation cases without remaining detained.
Minnesota Sues Trump Administration Over Evidence Related to Shootings, Including Deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good (CNN, March 24, 2026): The lawsuit claims that the federal government reneged on its promise to cooperate with state investigations after the surge of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis.
DOJ Says Gov’t Attys Can’t Be Punished Over ICE’s Actions (Law360, March 24, 2026): The Trump administration says a Minnesota federal judge erred by holding a government attorney in contempt after ICE flouted a court order, claiming the lawyer was “wrongfully held captive to induce ICE’s compliance.”
Supreme Court Seems Open to Trump Request to Block Asylum Seekers at Border (New York Times, March 24, 2026): A policy of turning back many asylum seekers at the border was rescinded in 2021, but the Justice Department wants the flexibility to reinstate it as a tool for border control.
Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Refugee Detention Policy (Notus.org, March 23, 2026): DHS issued a memo earlier this year instructing officers to arrest refugees who had not secured permanent residency one year after arriving in the U.S.
Will the Majority-Catholic Supreme Court Listen to the Church on Immigration? (USA Today, March 21, 2026): ‘Immoral.’ That’s what the Catholic church told the Supreme Court about President Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for some babies born in the US. What to watch in the upcoming showdown.
Justices to Consider the Rights of Asylum Seekers at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Scotusblog, March 19, 2026): The Supreme Court will hear a case this week on whether asylum seekers who come to the southern U.S. border to apply for asylum can be turned away by U.S. border agents. The case stems from an Obama administration policy called ‘metering’ that limited daily crossings and turned away asylum seekers without valid documents.
CONCENTRATION CAMPS – WAREHOUSE DETENTION CENTERS
De-Icing ICE (Grassroots Connector, March 27, 2026): Project Salt Box: Outing sinister plans for future detention facilities. [See, as well, Project Salt Box’s ICE Warehouse Purchase Tracker]
Is Adelanto’s [CA] ICE Detention Facility a ‘Concentration Camp’? And Does It Matter? (LAIst, March 26, 2026): Immigrant rights groups have filed a lawsuit against ICE and DHS, seeking to “end the inhumane and illegal conditions” at this facility.
ICE BUCKET
ICE Might Be violating America’s Other Bill of Rights (Priyanka Menon, The Atlantic, March 26, 2026): As a federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security is subject to the dictates of federal administrative law, much of which is set forward in a powerful 1946 statute known as the Administrative Procedure Act.
DOJ Says It Erroneously Relied on ICE Memo to Justify Immigration Courthouse Arrests (NBC News, March 25, 2026): The Trump administration admitted in a court filing that it had erroneously relied on an ICE memo to justify arrests at immigration courthouses as part of an ongoing federal case brought by groups seeking to block the tactic.
What a School District’s Enrollment in ICE’s 287(g) Program Reveals About the Messy Realities of Policy Diffusion (Austin Kocher Substack, March 24, 2026): Too many unanswered questions in ICE’s enrollment of Caney Valley School District in the 287(g) immigration enforcement program, highlighting ongoing issues with transparency and accountability.
Bannon: Trump’s ICE Airport Deployment Is ‘Test Run’ for ICE at Polls (Democracy Docket, March 23, 2026): “We can use this as a test run, as a test case, to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterms,” Bannon, a close Trump ally, said on his War Room podcast Monday.
EMERGING POLICY AND THREATS TO IMMIGRANTS
Targeting Toddlers and Minors
Wormy Food, Intimidating Guards, Sick Kids: Inside ICE’s Only Family Detention Center (Julia Lurie, Mother Jones, March 25, 2026): First-person accounts paint a bleak picture of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
How American Kids Have Been Collateral Damage in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown (ProPublica, March 24, 2026): Democrats in the House and Senate are digging into the treatment, detention and sometimes even deportation of American children at the hands of immigration agents.
Detained Immigrant Children Still Face Concerning Conditions at Texas Facility, Lawyers Say (AP, March 21, 2026): About 85 children remained detained at Dilley, and concerning conditions continued, said Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law.
Detention and Deportation and Death
The Overlooked Crisis Facing Immigrants with Disabilities (Pepper Stelter, The Nation, March 25, 2026): Gregory Javier Laguna, who has Down syndrome, and his brother have been detained for almost five months. Under Trump, “it feels like we have no recourse,” said one advocate.
34 Former Military Members Were Put on Deportation Track in the Past Year (New York Times, March 24, 2026): The Trump administration has ramped up enforcement against immigrant service members and their families in its wider crackdown.
TSA Tipped Off ICE Agents Before Arrests at San Francisco Airport (New York Times, March 24, 2026): TSA officials told ICE that a mother and daughter under a detention order, but with no criminal history, had planned to fly domestically.
ICE Has Been Deporting Pregnant and Postpartum Immigrants. Now We Know How Many (AZ Mirror, March 24, 2026): Between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, 363 pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants were deported.
The ‘Self-Deportee’ Hounded out of the US to Mexico: ‘There Are Days When I Feel Literally Insane’ (Guardian, March 24, 2026): Abel Ortiz lived in LA since he was a newborn. The Guardian filmed him as he left after 38 years.
Secretive Deal Leaves Deportees from the US Stuck in Equatorial Guinea with ‘No More Hope’ (AP, March 21,2026): 29 People have been deported to Equatorial Guinea, which the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen, has called “one of the most corrupt governments in the world.”
Authoritarianism, Lawlessness, Racism, andCruelty
Immigrant Trucker Returns to War-Torn Ukraine Rather than Risk ICE Encounter: ‘I Preferred Going Back Home’ (Guardian, March 26, 2026): New federal restrictions threaten licenses for noncitizen truckers, including Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion
In Secret Deportation Deal, U.S. Leveraged Favors and Funds (New York Times, March 25, 2026): In Cameroon, the Trump administration found a partner it could pressure into accepting covertly deported migrants.
Stephen Miller Asks Why Texas Pays to Teach Undocumented Children (New York Times, March 24, 2026): Stephen Miller raised the idea of ending public education funding for undocumented children, a move that would challenge a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
Trump Threatens to Deploy ICE Agents to Airports Monday if Funding Deal Isn’t Reached (CNN, March 21, 2026): Trump suggested that the ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest” of undocumented immigrants, with Trump specifying “heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
Some DHS Contractors Told White House Officials They Were Asked to Pay Corey Lewandowski (NBC News March 19, 2026): Some companies complained to the Trump administration that Lewandowski has stood to personally profit from the DHS contracting process. Lewandowski denies the allegations.
Attacks on All Immigrants
ICE Doubled Its Use of Ankle Monitors for Legal Immigrants in the Past Year: ‘A Very Harmful Phenomenon’ (Guardian, March 27, 2026): Agency uses devices, which are uncomfortable and interfere with employment, to push people to self-deport, advocates say.
DOJ Guts Office that Helps Indigent Immigrants Obtain Affordable Legal Aid, Sources Say (CBS News, March 23, 2026): The Recognition and Accreditation program accredits non-attorneys who work for largely faith-based legal advocacy organizations such as Catholic Charities and Jewish Family Services so they are authorized to assist immigrants on everything from naturalization petitions to representation in DOJ’s immigration courts.
Born Abroad and Fearful of ICE, Adoptees Try to Prove They Belong (New York Times, March 23, 2026): Up to 200,000 people adopted as children from abroad are vulnerable to deportation by an administration searching for problems with their citizenship.
Under Trump, Legal Immigration to U.S. Is Falling from Most Countries (Washington Post, March 22, 2026): The State Department issued about a quarter million fewer visas in the first eight months of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.
How the Trump Administration is Undermining Legal Immigrants (Guardian, March 21, 2026): The US has been targeting not only people who have violated the law but many who are in the country legally.
IMMIGRATION AND THE ECONOMY
A Republican Farmer Relies on Immigrant Work. He Sees His Party Erasing It (New York Times, March 27, 2026): For 20 years, Tim O’Harrow has asked lawmakers to acknowledge that America’s food supply depends on immigrants. Politics went in the other direction.
Lower Immigration and Zero Net Job Creation Dim U.S. Growth Prospects (Forbes, March 22, 2026): The Trump administration’s policy of reducing immigration has slowed labor force growth, economic growth and job creation.
BY THE NUMBERS
Immigration Slowdown Hits Every Metro Area in the U.S., Census Shows (New York Times, March 26, 2026): Large urban counties and the border were the most affected. And in three-quarters of U.S. counties, population growth either slowed or turned negative.
Incarceration Rates, 2010-2024: The Demographics of American Imprisonment (Alex Nowrasteh and Michelangelo Landgrave, Cato, March 25, 2026): Immigrants have a low incarceration rate.
Key Findings about Black Immigrants in the U.S. (Pew Research, March 20, 2026): Immigrants have contributed significantly to the growth and diversity of the Black population in the United States. Immigrants now make up about one-in-ten Black people in the U.S.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The Rise and Fall of ICE-Tracking Apps (Oriana van Praog, New Yorker, March 28, 2026): ICEBlock was meant to be an early-warning system to help people avoid immigration enforcement—the Trump Administration claims that it endangered the agents of its mass deportation campaign.
The Most Urgent Issue for the U.S. Catholic Church Isn’t Abortion Anymore (Francis X. Rocca, The Atlantic, March 24, 2026): It’s immigration.
Gregory Bovino’s Final Days: Harsh Words and Few Regrets (New York Times, March 24, 2026): “I wish I’d caught even more illegal aliens,” he said in a recent interview. “I mean, we went as hard as we could, but there’s always a creative and innovative solution to catching even more.”
Trauma in the Classroom (CNN, March 21, 2026): Minneapolis administrator says life after immigration surge is forever changed.