June 27, 2025
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests, often by masked officers in plain clothes, throughout the country continue to tear families apart and are eroding the public’s trust in law enforcement. There are countless stories of people being arrested by ICE officers outside immigration courtrooms after they show up for their appointments. One recent account is of a wife of a Marine Corps veteran with two small children, one of whom she was still breastfeeding when she was detained. Paola Clouatre entered the U.S. as a young child seeking asylum with her mother. She has been estranged from her mother for many years and only recently found out that ICE had issued deportation orders after her mother did not show up for an immigration hearing in 2018. On May 27, Paola attended a USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) meeting for her green card application with her husband, Adrian. While waiting in the lobby for paperwork she was handcuffed by ICE officers and taken to a detention center 4 hours from their home. Prior to President Trump taking office, USCIS had provided much more discretion to military veterans seeking legal status for a family member, the Clouatres’ attorney, Carey Holliday, said. However, in a memo dated Feb. 28, USCIS said it “will no longer exempt” from deportation people in groups that had received more grace in the past, including family members of veterans. The Clouatres have filed a motion with an immigration judge to reopen the case on Paola’s deportation orders but are awaiting an answer while their young children remain separated from their mother.
ICE is currently detaining approximately 59,000 immigrants, nearly half of whom have no criminal record, and fewer than 30% have been convicted of any crime. Detention centers are at more than 140% capacity since Congress has allocated funding for 41,500 beds for the agency. During his presidential campaign Trump vowed to focus on deporting dangerous criminals, but top officials in his administration have said that no one in the country illegally will be safe from deportation.
The Supreme Court has blocked a lower court order that required the Trump administration to provide a 15 day notice to migrants prior to deporting them to countries other than their own (also known as third countries). The lower court’s order provided migrants with time to contact attorneys and present evidence showing how their lives would be endangered if they were deported to certain third countries. Three Supreme Court Justices dissented, stating, "[t]he government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone, anywhere without notice or an opportunity be heard." The Supreme Court’s unsigned reversal puts the lower court order on hold while the case continues in the lower courts.
