Media monitoring, 2 – 9 October 2026, compiled by Susan Manuel
ICE Reins in two controversial tactics
Newsweek reported that ICE agents are making two changes in their approaches to immigration detention. First, a federal judge in New York ruled on 1 October that ICE could not continue to detain people at immigration court, anywhere in the country.
Judge P. Kevin Castel said such arrests were “arbitrary and capricious.”
“’People should not be arrested for doing exactly what the legal system requires of them,’” said Oscar Sarabia Roman, an ACLU attorney.
“The changes could have a major effect on how agents target those in the US without legal status, but who do not necessarily have criminal records, with ICE having heavily targeted immigration courts, where immigrants are facing hearings on their cases, leading to a steep rise in detentions.” (Newsweek).
Secondly, ICE has also come under scrutiny for its use of vehicle stops and high-speed chases, leading to injuries. Within the same week as the judge’s ruling, an ICE policy memo told agents to stop high speed chases and only engage in vehicle stops once they have received specific training. They must use federal vehicles with lights and sirens, and officers must wear and use body cameras when stopping vehicles.
“’People should not be arrested for doing exactly what the legal system requires of them,’” said Oscar Sarabia Roman, an ACLU attorney.
ICE Agent shoots Bronx area man
The ICE agent who shot Oscar Belgal in his car in the Bronx on 8 October while his five-year-old sat in the back has been repeatedly accused in federal court of unlawful arrests and using force during arrests in New York and Minneapolis, Wired reports. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that agents surrounded Belgal’s car then fired multiple rounds at it. Belgal was hospitalized with a neck injury, but the child was unharmed. The agent, Brendan Cuni, is a supervisor with the ICE National Fugitive Operations team, but was wearing a construction worker’s yellow vest. ICE says that the Dominican immigrant had a prior conviction for grand larceny.
Agent Cuni has been named in multiple lawsuits alleging violent arrests. A year ago, lawyers for a Bronx man claimed that during his arrest Cuni tripped him causing him to break a tooth, shocked him with a Taser six times while he was handcuffed on the ground and called him a maldito (damned) Mexicano. More cases of reported abuse were outlined in the Wired article.
Detentions to climb after midterms
The Washington Post opined on 5 October that immigration detentions should surge after the mid term elections and that erratic policy changes– such as the above– may be temporary, and also indicate tensions inside the Trump administration.
The Post cited the conservative Daily Wire which reported that ICE officers were told in late September to temporarily stop arresting illegal immigrants without criminal convictions or charges and to hold off on “collateral arrests.” DHS called the report false.
“This is the lates manifestation of the push-and-pull dynamic that has existed since Trump returned to power, pitting nativist hard-liners against pragmatists who appreciate the net economic value of immigrants,” the Post wrote. Trump himself moves between the two camps, as polling shows ICE actions have alienated many non-MAGA Republicans.
“The downstream effects of mass deportations might be exacerbating the economic headaches hurting the party in power,” the Post said, citing high beef prices and lost farming revenue.
“Regardless of the outcome of November’s elections, it’s a safe bet that enforcement will become more aggressive during Trump’s last two years in office.” ICE has an internal goal of hiring 5,000 more employees by the end of 2026, to bring the total work force to nearly 30,000.
More detainee deaths
–Maryland resident Julian Curo-Churata became the 37th person to die in ICE custody this year. He was 47, originally from Peru, and spent 17 years in the US with his family. He was arrested in June and was being held in Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana. He had a pending habeas corpus petition and asylum case, as well as a minor traffic offense on his record. He had opted to self-deport, but an immigration judge ruled against that on Sept. 18. No reason was given to media. ICE said he experienced a medical emergency and died the next day, Sept. 29 in a hospital. There has been no cause of death issued.
–A newly released government report found that medical staff failed to provide appropriate treatment to Luis Nunez Caceres, 42, a Honduran immigrant who died after cardiac arrests in a Conroe, TX detention center in January, one of at least eight immigrants to die in ICE custody in Texas during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 2026.
Vermont activists target spy center
Truthout reports that ICE has been operating a surveillance center in rural Vermont collecting data from across the country for its enforcement activities. Activists have been protesting at the Center all year. From Oct. 4-10, the groups held a week of action to “Shut Down ICE in Vermont,” targeting the center in Williston.
The National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, in White Cap Business Park, is one of two such centers, the other being in Laguna Niguel, California. An ICE Law Enforcement Support Center is also in Williston, where ICE operates a hot line for people to call in tips 24/7.
Both facilities are part of a Targeting Operations Division that processes 1.55 million biometric and biographic queries annually. ICE claims to have access to 340,000 records and communicates with more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies through 287(g) agreements.
Tools include surveillance cameras, as well as facial recognition technology, drones, ShotSpotter and social media monitoring software.
Truthout cited a report by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology that described a surveillance infrastructure built by ICE during Trump’s first term. The study found that ICE has compiled a wealth of data on all residents in the U.S. including drivers license photos of one in three adults and utility records of three in four adults.
“The surveillance power for these centers comes through their interoperability,” said Sarah Hamid of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The information is being collected in one context but then it can be connected to immigration or biometric border crossing, visa, court, criminal history and warrant data. It is operating at an industrial scale.”
Truthout went on to link the battle against surveillance with opposition to the occupation of Palestine, citing the ICE connections with Israeli companies, including Elbit Systems, Paragon Solutions and Cellebrite. Also, Palanitir has contracts with both ICE and the Israeli military.
ICE puts protestors info in Palantir
Wired reports that DHS may be building dossiers on ICE observers, including their photos, license plate numbers and other information, stored in the Investigative Case Management database built by Palantir, citing a Maine lawsuit, a class action in federal court in Maine brought by four observers. DHS calls the charge meritless and the lawsuit, baseless.
“’The government is treating people who exercise their First Amendment rights and seek to hold it accountable as criminal suspects, and that’s what we’re asking the court to stop,’” said Joanna Suriani, an attorney with Protect Democracy.
A redacted version was made public Friday. More details are available at the link below.
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-has-been-dumping-protester-photos-into-a-palantir-database/
Syracuse activists help immigrants evade ICE
Media around Syracuse have been captivated by the story of two immigrant men who spent six hours on a roof while neighbors and activists fended off ICE agents and some local police who appeared to be helping the agents. One advocate told the Post-Standard that “everybody stepped up in Oswego and decided the safety of our own was more important.”
It began midday Wednesday when Border Patrol agents tried to detain two men working on a house. The men fled and took refuge on another roof. For six hours some 70 people protested while agents tried to talk the men down. Among the songs being blasted were “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty and “Freedom” by Beyonce. Police were booed for bringing a ladder to the roof, which they said was to give the men a safe way down. The agents left around 730 pm.
About a dozen protesters then convinced the immigrant men to lower themselves into the arms of volunteers who put them in new clothes to help disguise them. Then the protestors plus immigrants got into four different cars which all drove in different directions to confound agents.
https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2026/10/how-strangers-helped-two-men-evade-an-immigration-arrest-everybody-stepped-up-in-oswego.html
Immigrants lose Medicaid
As of Oct 1, some 280,000 immigrants living legally in the US will lose Medicaid coverage as new eligibility restrictions kick in, Fox16 reported.
Kaiser Family Foundation reported that immigrants in nine states and Washington, D.C., are affected, including refugees, asylum recipients, trafficking victims and Afghan interpreters from the war. The One Big Beautiful Bill is limiting Medicaid to citizens and certain non-citizens including green card holders and specified Cuban and Haitians.
Immigrants living legally in the country are already ineligible for federally funded Medicaid, other than emergency care. Some states such as New York separately use their own funds to provide broader benefits to immigrant residents. (Undocumented immigrants who are pregnant, over 65, a DACA recipient, or a child can get some health coverage in New York. Otherwise immigrants can purchase private plans on the NY Dept of Health Marketplace, often with financial help) (from a NYS website).
Police profit from ICE
The Wall Street Journal reported that police and sheriffs’ departments in some small towns are making windfalls by cooperating with ICE via 287(g) agreements. One town in W.Virginia, population 7,600, received $137,000 for its contract. Over six months, two people were detained. The police department in Venice, FL, had one immigration detention (in 2025) and will receive $895,000. Larger departments get more: the Miami-Dade sheriff’s office is eligible for $14.5 million from April to June, or about $2 million for each arrest made that quarter. So far DHS has distributed more than $200 million to its law enforcement partners since Jan 2025.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/immigration-arrests-police-trump-f0ca5253
Detentions and disappearances in El Salvador
The Atlantic reported that the US has been sending increasingly large numbers of immigrants to El Salvador, where one in four are subsequently jailed, unable to communicate with lawyers or family. Nearly 10,000 people were deported there in the first half of the year. The Salvadoran government will not confirm for family members where people are detained or whether they are even alive. At least five have died according to Crisosal, a Salvadoran human right organization.
Delaney protestor released
Martin Soto, originally from Peru, was released after an eight-month detention, first in Delaney Hall, where he had participated in a hunger strike, and later in a detention center in Elizabeth NJ.
Mr. Soto had entered the US illegally in 2023 and has been pursuing a green card through his US citizen wife. He was arrested while buying diapers for their son. He said he was transferred to Delaney in retaliation for organizing demonstrations over inhumane conditions. His lawyer said that Soto became suicidal after four months in solitary confinement.
US District Court Judge Jamel Semper ruled that Mr. Soto’s detention was illegal.
ICE said that his wife was an “’anti-ICE agitator who helped lead the protests that turned violent’” outside Delaney Hall and accused Mr. Soto of “inciting unrest and causing property damage” inside. “’Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in our country.’”
Outside the Newark center, Mr. Soto thanked supporters and said “’We will share our story and everything that happened to us. We have to fight until this bad government is out.’”
Trump to ship immigrants out
The New York Times reported on 9 Oct. that the Trump administration is considering using ships to deport migrants to Central and South America. “It is not clear why officials are entertaining such an unusual plan, considering the logistical challenges, high cost and checkered history of deportations by sea,” the Times wrote. “The plan could however, offload some deportation costs from DHS to the Defense Department.”
Madhuri Shukla, Detention Watch Network, via JustSeeds.org