In addition to the actions reported in other articles below, the Trump administration has been busy. Below is a non-exhaustive summary of selected highlights of other recent immigration-related developments:

  • On February 18, 2025, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem issued a memorandum deputizing up to 600 special agents in the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service across the United States “to help with arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.” DHS has also deputized Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice employees “to help with immigration enforcement actions.”
  • On February 17, 2025, DHS announced the launch of a multimillion-dollar international and domestic advertising campaign warning undocumented migrants to “self-deport and stay out” of the United States or face being “hunted down and deported” with the inability to return. The series of ads “will run on radio, broadcast, and digital, in multiple countries and regions in various dialects. Ads will be hyper-targeted, including through social media, text message and digital to reach illegal immigrants in the interior of the United States, as well as internationally,” DHS said.
  • Caleb Vitello was removed as acting administrator of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and reassigned after a month in the position. Mr. Vitello reportedly will now oversee enforcement of arrests, targeting, and field operations. As of press time, there was no announcement of a replacement. The removal followed reports of Trump administration dissatisfaction with the rate of deportations. Daily arrests were in the 300-to-1,100 range, but daily quotas were established at 1,200 to 1,400. To reach 1 million in a year, daily deportations would need to reach more than 2,700. On Inauguration Day, President Trump promised “millions and millions” of deportations.
  • After President Trump issued a memorandum in January to the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security “to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity,” indicated that some migrants would be sent there indefinitely rather than being deported to their home countries, and suggested that “30,000 beds” were available there for this purpose, the administration flew out the 178 migrants in Guantanamo as of February 20, 2025, following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking access to the detainees. Reportedly, almost all of the group were flown to Honduras and onward to Venezuela where they were from. “Shipping immigrants off to Guantanamo without access to lawyers or the outside world cannot be reconciled with our country’s laws or principles. It will now be up to the courts to reaffirm that the rule of law governs our nation,” said Lee Gelernt, ACLU lawyer and lead counsel in the lawsuit.
  • Several lawsuits were filed by a group of Venezuelans in California and several immigrant advocacy organizations, including CASA and Make the Road New York, in a U.S. district court in Maryland. The lawsuits challenge the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans. “This unconstitutional action forces nearly 600,000 Venezuelans and their families currently living in the U.S. with TPS protection into the untenable position of potentially being forced to return to a country experiencing what has been described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the history of the Western Hemisphere,” the groups said in a statement.
  • A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump administration cannot deport eight asylum-seekers who are either in detention in the United States or have been deported. Some observers note that the case “will determine whether immigrants have a right to claim asylum on the southern border. On a broader level, it is also a test of whether presidential orders can supersede Congress.”
  • The Department of Justice fired 20 immigration judges, 13 of whom had not yet been sworn in, without explanation amid major cuts and backlogged immigration courts. According to reports, the backlog comprises approximately 3.7 million cases.