March 31 Updates
National
If you have a Venezuelan relative or loved one who you believe was deported to El Salvador, please urgently contact Juntos & Libres by sending a message via WhatsApp to 214-817-0405. See more information here.
Several groups including The Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Justice Action Center announced the filing of a federal lawsuit against the government for shutting down critical legal representation programs for unaccompanied immigrant children. Read more here.
An International Migration Review paper using novel data approaches “provides new statistics on nearly a half million unaccompanied minors navigating removal proceedings in US immigration courts nationwide between 2009 and 2023.”
With the continued targeting of students for exercising free speech, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that 300 student visas have been revoked, asserting "we have a right" to rescind the visas of students who participate in campus protests, despite questions about due process and First Amendment objections.” -reports CBS News
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the Trump Administration must process and admit conditionally approved refugees.
A Federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the administration can partially enforce a refugee ban during the ongoing legal battle over an executive order that suspended the resettlement program. The court did stipulate that the refugee resettlement of those who were already approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before the executive order (Jan 20) must continue. Read more hereUS Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem traveled to El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico to discuss migration, reports El País. As part of the trip, the US and Colombia signed a memorandum of understanding “that would pave the way for the two countries to exchange biometric data collected from migrants,” per Al Jazeera.
On Monday the 24th, 20 Democratic Congresspeople sent a letter to Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons expressing their concern about the detention of immigrants at GMOC and the Military Detention Center at Guantánamo Bay.
ICE’s latest detention data released shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is holding close to 50,000 people in custody, or precisely 47,892 as of March 23, 2025 - read more here
Tom Cartwright’s database (Witness At The Border) shows that ICE has carried out 267 deportation flights under Trump, and that the president is using military-transport planes—whose operating costs are three to five times as high as conventional passenger aircrafts’—at an unprecedented rate. However, the pattern and frequency of ICE flights haven’t significantly changed under Trump 2.0.
Illinois
Find your representatives in IL here
Bills coming up in the state legislature need our support:
SB1857 / HB3400 - restoration of the VTTC program to its original eligibility criteria, once again allowing survivors:
who are preparing to apply to file an application for immigration status, to receive funds to pay for food and essential items during this vulnerable time period.
who fled to the U.S. alone (i.e.., the vast majority of human trafficking survivors were forced to flee their country without their family) to be eligible for the program again.
See fact sheet here
Please email andreakovach@povertylaw.org to have your organization sign on to a letter of support for the bill organized by the Poverty Law Center, or to get more information.
This bill passed out of the Education Policy Committee this past Wednesday! Thank you to all who submitted witness slips.
SB 2033 - Immigration Safe Zones Act
Presented by State Senator Villanueva (of Little Village) and Cristina Castro (of Elgin). Graciela Guzmán (of Chicago) has been officially added as a co-sponsor.
Chicago
The National Immigrant Justice Center, The Resurrection Project, The Immigration Project, Children’s Legal Center, and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender have joined forces as MIDA (Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance)
See more information about MIDA here
See more information for people in detention and their loved ones in Spanish here and in English here