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BY THE TIME word spread that up to 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants had been detained under the international bridge in Del Rio, the small Texas border town had become occupied territory. A helicopter hovered over the Rio Grande, state troopers swarmed everywhere and were stationed every half-mile along the surrounding roads. A tent city of military and law enforcement personnel had sprouted up on city-owned land on the south side of the border wall, near the makeshift camp where Haitians slept. Inside the camp, in the dirt and the heat, pregnant women went into labor.

Four years ago, Republicans and Democrats linked arms with residents from both sides of the border to form a human chain across the bridge in a show of “unity,” yet in recent weeks Del Rio has become a theater for a dramatic show of violence and force, as mounted Border Patrol agents charged at Haitian migrants while twirling their reins like whips. Some 2,300 law enforcement officers, said Mayor Bruno Lozano, had been dispatched to Val Verde County, home to roughly 49,000 residents.

On September 30, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued the long-awaited new set of enforcement priorities, entitled “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Laws”. The guidelines, which will go into effect on November 29, 2021, will replace the February 18 interim enforcement priorities memo issued to U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as Initial interim guidelines issued on January 20, 2021.

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday it intends to issue a new memo in the coming weeks ending the “remain in Mexico” immigration program.

The department issued a memo in June ending the program implemented by former President Donald Trump, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), but a Texas-based federal judge ruled MPP must be restarted.

The U.S. Supreme Court in August rejected an effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to block the Texas-based judge’s ruling.

The settlement will provide restitution to passengers who were detained, arrested or deported after immigration agents conducted warrantless searches on buses, Washington State’s attorney general said.

Greyhound Lines will pay $2.2 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by Washington State that accused it of allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to conduct warrantless immigration sweeps on its buses, state officials said this week.

Washington State’s attorney general said the settlement would be used to provide restitution to passengers who were detained, arrested or deported after immigration agents boarded their buses at the Spokane Intermodal Center, and for partial reimbursement of his office’s litigation costs.

The Biden administration will provide government-funded legal representation to certain unaccompanied immigrant children in deportation proceedings in eight US cities as part of an effort to boost legal access in the immigration court system, according to agency officials.

The new effort, labeled the Counsel for Children Initiative, comes months after the Biden White House dealt with an increase in children arriving at the southern border, leading to overcrowded detention facilities and a scramble to find appropriate locations to hold them. Immigrants in deportation proceedings are generally not provided an attorney by the government if they cannot afford one.

A Bergen County detainee who was woken up in the middle of the night to be flown to Arizona.  A Haitian migrant who was transferred from detention center to detention center seven times over four years. An Essex County resident who was detained while his wife was pregnant, and didn’t meet his child for two years.

A coalition of advocates is shining a light on the stories of undocumented immigrants who suffered while imprisoned in New Jersey’s immigration detention facilities, part of an effort to urge support for ending immigrant detainee transfers and for an overhaul for federal immigration laws.

“We have seen how families have been ripped apart, especially in the last few months once Essex County announced they would be depopulating their ICE unit,” said Jackie Zapata with Friends First of NJ & NY. “Our friends who called New Jersey their home were transferred to faraway states, far away from their communities, families, and legal resources.”

Defense attorneys have started asking courts to set migrants free because local justice systems, overwhelmed by arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security push, are routinely violating state law and constitutional due process rights.

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Hundreds of migrants arrested under Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s “catch and jail” border security push have been sitting in prison for weeks with no charges filed against them, and dozens were imprisoned for more than a month without being appointed lawyers.

A federal court has moved to preserve the Biden administration’s ability to use a Trump-era public health order to expel migrant families arriving at the southern border.

The action by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit comes after a federal judge issued a time-delayed order to block the administration’s use of the Title 42 policy for removing migrant families earlier this month. The judge’s order, issued on Sept. 16, was scheduled to go into effect on Thursday.

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois will effectively end immigrant detention and further restrict local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities under a plan Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Monday.

Three years ago, amid negotiations over immigration reform, then-President Donald Trump infamously questioned why the US was taking in immigrants from “shithole countries.”

He was referring to people from African nations who often have no legal pathway to come to the US except through a program known as the “diversity visa lottery.” Every year, roughly 55,000 people from countries with low levels of immigration to the US are chosen via a lottery to apply for a visa through the program. For many of them, it’s a golden ticket to a better life.

WaPo: “The IRS is aware some taxpayers who filed tax returns with ITIN numbers did not receive their child tax credit payment for July. We have worked expeditiously to correct this issue and these taxpayers will start receiving payments in August. All impacted taxpayers will receive their July payment.”