Read May 21, 2026

Monthly immigration update: May 2026

Remember The DREAM Act? First introduced in 2001, this bipartisan legislation would have provided a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. For 25 years, some version of Dreamer legislation has been filed in Congress. None of those bills have passed.

With legislation stalled, the Obama Administration announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012, an executive action to provide work authorization and temporary protection from deportation for some Dreamers.

DACA was an imperfect solution, but for over a decade, over 500,000 Dreamers were able to more fully contribute to our country – the country they consider to be their home.

DACA has been in litigation for several years, but current recipients have been allowed to continue filing for renewal while their case proceeds. Those filing renewals are running into resistance, however, with wait times increasing so much that some DACA recipients are forced to take unpaid leave from their jobs. Others cannot start new positions until their work permits clear.

Slower processing isn’t the only threat to DACA. In April, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued an opinion that DACA alone cannot shield Dreamers from deportation.

A permanent legislative solution for Dreamers is overwhelmingly popular: In a 2025 Gallup poll, 85% of Americans supported allowing Dreamers to obtain citizenship if they meet certain requirements.

A lot of immigration issues are complicated. This one isn’t. Congress should pass a permanent legislative solution so the Dreamers in our communities can be as American on paper as they are in their hearts.

Figure of the Month

$73 million

The Department of Defense estimates that efforts to detain immigrants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba will cost $73 million. Over the last year, only 832 detainees have been held on the base, a fraction of the 30,000 detention beds promised. A mere six detainees were present at the facility in May. Government employees outnumber detainees nearly 100 to one.

Bush Institute Insights

In our latest op-ed for The Hill, the Bush Institute’s immigration Fellow Theresa Brown and I argue that Congress, not the courts, should revise asylum processes, invest in regional screening before migrants reach the border, and update the outdated systems that were never designed to handle today’s migration flows.
Theresa also joined Texas Public Radio host Norma Martinez on Fronteras to discuss her recent report, “More than borders: Smart foreign policy to manage migration.” She argued that the United States needs to treat migration not simply as a border issue, but as a broader foreign policy challenge. Theresa explained that executive actions alone are insufficient to manage long-term migration pressures and called for deeper collaboration with partner countries: “We need to think about our border not as a line, so much as a process. What can we do to help work with other countries to manage migration before it reaches our border?”

Data Dive

The Brookings Institution estimates that 145,000 U.S. citizen children have likely experienced a parent booked into immigrant detention since the second Trump Administration began.
Six in 10 Americans say significant immigration into the United States is an important part of the country’s future success, according to a new Ipsos survey marking the nation’s 250th anniversary. A majority of respondents – 80% – describe the country as a “nation of immigrants.”
An analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy found that 64.3% of national interest waiver petitions were denied in late fiscal year 2025 – up sharply from 38.8% a year earlier. The denial rate for an “alien with extraordinary ability” also nearly doubled to 46.6% year-over-year from 25.6%, reflecting the impact of policy choices that “restrict or prevent high-skilled foreign nationals” from working in the country.
The FBI increased the number of personnel working on “immigration-related matters” from 279 before President Trump took office to more than 6,500 by September 2025, according to a Freedom of Information Act request obtained by The Intercept. In total, 9,161 FBI employees – nearly a quarter of its workforce – were assigned to immigration enforcement at some point during the administration’s first months.

What I’m Reading

Dallas-Fort Worth’s NBC 5 Investigates looked at data from the ICE Flight Monitor project to examine just why so many immigrant detainees are brought to Texas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the flights are about bed space; immigration lawyers say it is a jurisdictional quirk – federal courts have issued rulings allowing detainees in Texas to be held without bond.
Third country deportations – when the United States removes immigrants to a country with which they have no prior ties – continue to be a sticky issue. NPR’s Emmet Livingstone tells the story of 15 migrants from Latin America who were deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s poorest and least free countries, wracked by decades of armed conflict, acute food insecurity, internal displacement, and a recent Ebola outbreak. Now the U.S. government is footing the bill for their extended stay in a rundown hotel in Kinshasa without reliable access to water, passports, money, or the ability to speak the local language.
A federal judge recently ordered the U.S. government to bring back to the United States one of these third country deportees, a Colombian woman with chronic health issues whom the Congolese government said it would not be able to appropriately treat.
Children as young as 4 are being rushed through immigration court as the Trump Administration moves to speed up deportations, CNN reports. Kids are being called to repeated hearings within weeks of arriving, often without legal help, leaving many “confused, scared and frustrated” as they try to navigate a system they barely understand. Advocates say the pressure is taking a visible toll, with some children so distressed that they wet their pants before court appearances.
The Marshall Project examines the “prison-to-ICE pipeline,” whereby state prison systems transfer some incarcerated immigrants directly into federal immigration custody at the end of their sentences. The piece highlights how ICE detainers work in practice, the discretion states retain in honoring them, and the legal gray areas surrounding immigration enforcement inside correctional systems.
More than a dozen green card holders from Haiti, Venezuela, and Côte d’Ivoire sued the federal government, trying to compel officials to process their naturalization applications. These immigrants allege the federal government is refusing to adjudicate their applications despite them being eligible to naturalize and submitting all required paperwork. All plaintiffs are from countries deemed by the Trump Administration to be “high risk.”
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Jen Rickling wrote movingly about her daughter-in-law Annie Ramos. Annie was detained while accompanying her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank, to his post in Louisiana. “While the immigration system is complicated, the questions I am wrestling with are not. Is it better for the nation if Annie and other Dreamers with pristine records are targets for detention? Or should they have a way to become fully participating Americans, especially after marrying a U.S. citizen?”
Bellwether has a cool resource to help you learn more about Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruling on access to public education for undocumented immigrant children. It covers everything from history of the case to effects, and it includes an interactive map of state legislative efforts to either protect or challenge Plyler.