In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that ICE violated the federal immigration law and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by holding undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for years in detention without a hearing. The policy, enacted last summer, has been a key part of efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration efforts to ramp up deportations across the country.
The ruling will take immediate effect in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades “are entitled to due process rights beyond those provided to noncitizens at the border,” Circuit Judge Patty Shwartz wrote in the majority opinion.
The government has a legitimate interest in keeping dangerous noncitizens in custody, the judge said, but a “neutral decisionmaker” should make that assessment on a case-by-case basis — rather than a practice of detaining all undocumented immigrants indefinitely.
Circuit Judge Theodore A. McKee, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, joined the opinion written by Schwartz, who was appointed by Barack Obama.
In a dissent, Circuit Judge Jennifer L. Mascott said the ruling was inconsistent with federal immigration law.
“A bond hearing focused on flight risk and dangerousness would generate irrelevant facts, not material to individual determinations,” wrote Mascott, who was appointed by Trump.
The Justice Department disagrees with the ruling and believes its position will “ultimately be vindicated,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“This is a huge win for due process,” said Rachel Rutter, a lawyer and executive director of Project Libertad, a Phoenixville-based nonprofit that provides free legal and social services for migrant youths facing deportation. “The Third Circuit has joined a chorus of other circuit courts striking down the Trump administration’s inhumane practice of mandatory detention of people who have spent years building lives in the U.S.”
The decision “reaffirms decades of case law stating that these people have the right to challenge their detention through a bond hearing,” Rutter said.
Nine other circuit courts have issued rulings on mandatory detention, and seven found the policy unlawful. The Justice Department petitioned the Supreme Court in June, asking the high court to resolve a split it said was “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law.”
The mandatory detention policy was rolled out by the Trump administration last year, and has led to an avalanche of lawsuits by immigrants who challenged their incarceration and demanded a bond hearing.
These requests, known as habeas corpus petitions, were rare not long ago, but since the policy change, they’ve dominated the docket in Philadelphia’s federal courthouse. More than 1,100 such petitions have been filed since September. Between 2020 and 2024, by contrast, only 11 such suits were filed.
The Third Circuit case involved two undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for over a decade and were picked up by ICE after the mandatory detention policy took effect. Neither has a criminal history. Federal judges in Philadelphia ordered their release, finding their detention was unlawful.
Christopher Casazza, a Philadelphia-based immigration lawyer who represented one of the immigrants at the center of the case, called the court’s decision a “great ruling that will help thousands of people.”
The benefit for immigrants, he said, would come primarily in two forms: Anyone still being detained in the region after being arrested under the Trump administration policy can now apply for a bond hearing. And going forward, anyone who is arrested will be able to ask an immigration judge for bond.
That doesn’t guarantee release, Casazza said, but it provides people the opportunity to make a case to an immigration judge, as had been the practice before the new policy took effect after Trump began his second term.
“We’re going back to the rule of law that’s been the case for 30 years,” he said.
And every time, my blood boils at the rampant thuggery on display.
I abhor facile slogans, but as more and more incidents pile up, this one’s an easy call: Abolish ICE.
Smash it up. Close it down. Dismantle it. It shouldn’t be too hard, since it’s already been broken by President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in Congress, who have flooded the agency with billions of dollars and a mission directive that rewards lawlessness and recklessness.
Under Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s anti-immigrant policies, the goal is mass arrests and deportations, no matter the cost. A June 2025 post by the president on Truth Social made it explicit: “ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
This has led to the foreseeable consequences that are playing out on America’s streets and inside immigration detention centers. The stories of abuse are so common, their number so overwhelming, that I don’t see how the agency survives.
This should not be interpreted as a call for nonexistent borders or unfettered immigration. Having spent much of my life in and around southwest Texas, I count myself among those who have a particular appreciation for the importance of humane, rational, and consistent immigration policies — but, by almost any measure, we’re getting none of the above from ICE as it’s currently formulated.
And it’s not just me or the usual left-leaning advocates who are questioning the national framework on immigration. Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe immigration is a good thing for our country, and most people prefer widening paths to citizenship rather than increasing enforcement efforts.
The prospect of doing away with ICE does not garner nearly as much support from undecided midterm voters, with just 21% of them saying in a recent poll that they favored eliminating the agency.
As I’ve written about how the administration is demonizing immigrants, I’ve heard from conservative readers who say the media is doing the same to ICE, casting it as the worst of the worst and inevitably forcing a critical look at its future.
To answer the question of what the agency might look like in the years to come — or if it should even continue to exist at all — I reached out to a few people who may know ICE better than nearly anyone else: those who’ve worked inside it.
Federal agents make a traffic stop on a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in January.Adam Gray
Changing tactics
I put the question of ICE’s future and how its agents are regarded to Jason Houser, who spent his government career at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a former ICE chief of staff. The Afghanistan combat veteran told me it starts and ends with leadership.
“The tactical and operational guidance and directives from the administration are putting ICE officers in a place to be demonized,” he said. “There’s a lot of authority and power in law enforcement, and the way that power is being used by this administration for the first 18 months has been disjointed, punitive, shortsighted, and targeted at the most vulnerable communities.”
While the behavior of some agents is inexcusable, and they should be held accountable, the agency is ultimately an instrument wielded by those in power.
For example, some of the same agents who are being maligned today were redeployed to Del Rio, Texas, in 2021 to help humanely and safely process almost 16,000 mostly Haitian immigrants who were living in substandard conditions in a makeshift border camp, Houser noted.
How ICE is operating today cannot be separated from the administration’s demands.
Some of the worst examples of abuse by ICE agents have come during vehicle stops, including the July killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Agents have been captured on video in high-speed pursuits, cutting off cars, and smashing windows.
Before Trump returned to office, the agency rarely engaged in these kinds of tactics, let alone used them to target noncriminal immigrants, said Joe Sifuentez, who worked for ICE until he retired in 2020.
“If it’s a bad guy in that vehicle, we have a judicial warrant, we stop them. Then we can break that window and drag that person out of the vehicle,” he said. “But that’s not what’s happening now.”
While the president campaigned on mass deportations, many voters believed the government would focus on immigrants with serious criminal records. Increasingly, that is not the case, with most people being detained only charged with violating civil immigration laws.
And in trying to fill a reported White House quota of 2,000 arrests a day, federal agents are engaged in random sweeps and racial profiling that put people at risk.
“I’m concerned that one of my loved ones could get pulled over tomorrow,” Sifuentez said. “God only knows what can happen.”
Detainees stand at windows at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, N.J., in May, as demonstrators gather outside.TODD HEISLER
Bad math
The Republican-controlled Congress has given the administration more than $150 billion for immigration enforcement. The question is what taxpayers are getting in return. It isn’t increasing public safety, the former officials I spoke with said.
Houser pointed to a recent report by the DHS Office of Inspector General that found that as ICE shifted priorities toward immigration enforcement, its efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking declined. From fiscal years 2024 to 2025, the report said, fentanyl investigations decreased by 24%, investigative hours spent countering fentanyl decreased by approximately 30%, and fentanyl seizures decreased by almost 40%.
It’s not just drug trafficking investigations that are falling by the wayside over Trump’s misplaced priorities. ICE agents descending on a Home Depot or a Walmart to fulfill their arrest quotas fail to target the kinds of criminals the agency should be focused on.
“Real sex predators, convicted rapists, murderers, aren’t just hanging out at a Starbucks on a Tuesday, right? They’re not at the corner, walking their kids to school,” Houser said.
Mass arrests also put people in detention who do not have a final order of removal. These are immigrants who are going through the system and would generally be allowed to walk free until they had exhausted their legal options. Instead, the administration is deciding to hold them without bond for what can be an indeterminate amount of time.
Sifuentez, who oversaw ICE’s national fugitive operations program and detention facilities, told me that even under regular circumstances, detention is extremely challenging. As the government works to not only increase the number of such facilities in the country, but also how many people these places hold, the situation is bound to get worse.
“When I was in Atlanta, I oversaw a facility with 2,000 detainees. That in itself was very difficult to oversee and keep your staffing levels intact,” he said. “What do you think it’s going to be like when you ramp it up to 10,000?”
“You’re going to see more suicides. You’re going to see more people die of health conditions. You’re going to see more both mental and physical stress that leads to horrific outcomes,” Houser added. “It’s just math.”
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant, was fatally shot by ICE agents in Houston in July. A makeshift memorial took shape at the site where he was killed.ANTRANIK TAVITIAN
Abolish ICE
If ICE is being used to indiscriminately terrorize communities, and ignore constitutional protections while disregarding its public safety charge, what is the point of its continued existence? Even if you see it as a tool, if it can be abused so readily and so thoroughly by an out-of-control executive, wouldn’t the cause of sensible and coherent immigration policy be better served by replacing it?
Neither of the former officials I spoke with would endorse the call to abolish ICE, and perhaps their experiential knowledge of the agency’s complexity would keep them from ever embracing what can feel more like a facile bit of political sloganeering than anything else. After all, activists have long called to eliminate the agency, rightly underscoring the need for accountability over the lives that have been destroyed by detention and deportation — but they hardly ever offer realistic or politically viable alternatives.
Indeed, as long as we are a nation of laws, there will be the need for enforcement. In humanitarian terms, whatever agency takes ICE’s place will be judged harshly under those same standards, but exist it must.
Still, Sifuentez, until recently a lifelong registered Republican, said that at the very least ICE should be renamed and its functions divided among other agencies.
“Everybody in America should be very concerned about what’s going on,” he said. “This isn’t about politics. This is about what’s right and what’s wrong, and what’s going on is wrong.”
For his part, Houser stressed that we need migrants in this country, and we need public safety. Immigration enforcement is difficult, nuanced work and should be entrusted to those who have the highest level of training and expertise.
“No matter what the structure and organization of the bureaucracy is, there’s going to be immigration enforcement, and it needs to be handled with professionalism,” he said. “Remembering that 95% of individuals who are coming to this country want the American way of life, and that’s something to be embraced.”
Immigration courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware are ordering people removed from the country in numbers not seen in at least a quarter century.
At the Philadelphia immigration court — which hears cases for most Pennsylvania and Delaware residents — orders of removal or voluntary departure rose 71%, from 1,230 in May to 2,105 in June. At New Jersey’s courts, orders rose 47%, from 2,348 to 3,446.
The figures are the highest since at least late 1997.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in removal orders where we may not have seen them in the past,” said Emma Tuohy, a partner at Philadelphia’s Simon, Choi & Tuohy and a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Philadelphia chapter. “Cases are getting more difficult to win.”
June’s cases bring to more than 46,000 the number of removal and voluntary deportation orders courts across the three states have issued since President Donald Trump’s return to office — slightly more than the total issued over the entirety of former President Joe Biden’s term.
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(A voluntary departure order requires an individual to leave the country but, unlike a removal order, does not legally bar them from returning.)
Local immigration attorneys say the surge in such orders reflects the Trump administration’s success in transforming immigration courts from independent arbiters of the law into components of a larger deportation machine. Immigration judges, they say, now often work in concert with government agents and attorneys to remove the maximum number of people from the country as quickly as possible, sometimes violating the due process rights of people who find themselves caught up in the system.
Lilah Thompson, chief of immigration in the Community Defense Unit at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, has seen the trend in her own practice.
“The immigration judges are on the same side as ICE and DHS, which is not supposed to be the case. They’re supposed to be neutral arbiters of the law,” Thompson said. “But that is not how it actually plays out.”
Unlike typical federal judges, immigration court judges are not independent judicial branch officials but executive branch employees within the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency responsible for overseeing the nation’s immigration courts system.
EOIR officials declined an interview request for this article. In a statement, a Department of Justice spokesperson said: “The Justice Department is restoring integrity to our immigration system by hearing cases fairly, expeditiously, and uniformly, in accordance with the law.”
The states’ record high figures and sharp month-over-month increases match the trend nationwide, as the country saw such orders rise by a third, to nearly 87,000. Nationally, more than 960,000 of theseorders have been issued since Trump returned to office.
June’s increases reflect a steady rise in such orders since then.
Compared with January 2025, removal and voluntary departure orders were up nearly 300% in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and more than 280% in New Jersey. Nationally, removal orders were up almost 160%.
As the number of deportation orders has reached all-time highs, such orders have also come to represent the vast majority of deportation case outcomes.
In June, 90% of Pennsylvania and Delaware cases ended with an order of removal or voluntary departure. In New Jersey, 94% did. Nationally, about 89% of cases ended with such an order.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, more than 85% of cases have ended with such orders. Under Biden, about 44% did. About two-thirds of cases ended in a removal or voluntary departure order during Trump’s first term.
Rosina Stambaugh, a York-based immigration attorney, pointed to the faster pace of recent deportation cases as a major factor.
“They’re scheduling a final hearing in like two weeks. Before, we’d have at least a month to prepare,” Stambaugh said. “To prepare for a final hearing in just two weeks is insane. We used to have at least 30, sometimes 45 to 60, days to prepare for a hearing.”
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The faster pace is in part the result of judges refusing to offer continuances, lawyers say. Before, it was ordinary for a judge to delay a hearing so an attorney had more time to prepare. That is no longer the case.
The change follows a series of rulings from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) — the highest administrative body for interpreting immigration laws. One such ruling largely prohibited judges from extending cases based on future eligibility for relief.
Stambaugh offered a client of hers as an example.
After the man was arrested in an ICE sweep, his fiancée, an American citizen, raced to file marriage paperwork. The couple were scheduled to get married the day after his hearing. Stambaugh asked the judge to delay issuing a ruling, as the impending marriage would have granted new grounds for protection from deportation. The judge refused and the man accepted a voluntary departure.
Those rulings instruct judges to order someone removed before providing them with an opportunity for a full hearing of their case in some circumstances.
“So before anyone’s even had a chance to dive into the meat of the case — to really prepare evidence and prepare for the case — the judges are predetermining that the case is without merit and [removing] them,” Tuohy said.
More people detained while facing deportation, the vast majority with no criminal record
The increasing number of detained individuals is another factor fueling the surge in deportations, according to lawyers.
In June, more than 11% of people receiving orders of removal or voluntary departure in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware were in detention. That is up from 7% in January 2025. Since Trump returned to office, about one in four people in the three states was detained, compared with about 7% during the Biden administration and 29% during Trump’s first term.
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Stambaugh said that in the past, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents encountered someone without legal status who did not have a criminal record, they would usually just issue a notice to appear before a judge or even let them go after advising them to seek legal status. That has changed.
“It is 100% that ICE officers no longer have discretion in who they can detain,” Stambaugh said. “Now, if you come in contact with ICE and you’re not a lawful permanent resident or U.S. citizen, you’re detained.”
As more people are detained during deportation proceedings, a smaller share of them have a criminal record.
In June, just 1% of cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware ending in an order of removal or voluntary departure were brought on grounds alleging a criminal violation, matching the share nationally. The last time more than 5% of cases ending in an order of removal or voluntary departure were brought under a criminal charge was December 2024, the month before Trump took office for his second term.
“They’re trying to remove as many people as possible, and they’re going to go for low-hanging fruit, which is individuals out in the community who are doing nothing wrong,” Thompson said, referencing collateral arrests and those that have occurred during individuals’ ICE check-ins.
A series of BIA rulings last year have also led to a growing detained population, lawyers say. In the most consequential of those, the board prohibited immigration judges from granting bond to people who entered the country without permission — regardless of the length of time they had lived in the United States or whether they had a criminal record.
Previously, attorneys say they had adequate time to prepare cases. That is no longer true.
“When you have to do these cases in two weeks, you don’t really have much to work with because the main person who has to get you evidence is stuck in detention,” Stambaugh said. “That’s what makes these cases a lot harder.”
Share of people without legal representation increasing
People with legal representation are far more likely to avoid an order of removal or voluntary departure. In June, 73% of such individuals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware courts had their cases end in removal vs. 98% of those who lacked legal representation, similar to national figures and long-standing trends.
At the same time, the share of people without legal representation has steadily climbed in recent years.
In June, a little under 24% of individuals in deportation cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware had a lawyer. That is down from about 57% in January 2025. Since Trump returned to office, about one in three people in the three states had a lawyer, as compared with about 57% during the Biden administration and 52% during Trump’s first term.
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Thompson, of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said several factors were at play.
First, the demand for attorneys has increased alongside the volume of cases, swamping supply.
Second, cases both move more quickly and are more complex, limiting the number of cases attorneys can juggle at once.
“Our ability to take on cases is so much less now because what a case requires now is so much more,” she said.
And unlike Thompson and her colleagues, who offer their services at no charge, private lawyers are expensive and their fees reflect the increasing complexity of cases, meaning fewer people can afford them.
Tuohy suggested the increase in detention is likely also making it more difficult for people to afford legal services.
“You’re not working anymore if you’re in detention, right?” Tuohy said. “So then you’re asking your family to foot the bill, and that consideration [to hire an attorney] becomes even more difficult.”
Stambaugh suggested an additional factor: The flurry of policy changes has led to immigration courts so stacked in the government’s favor that many immigrants may regard hiring an attorney as a waste of money since they will likely face deportation no matter the strength of their case.
She has begun advising potential clients that their best option may be to keep their money and instead accept voluntary deportation.
“In my opinion, you’re going to have to go back [to your home country], so you might as well keep your money and go find somewhere to live,” Stambaugh said.
A South Philadelphia babysitter, originally from Argentina, was released from ICE detention Monday after being arrested at Philadelphia International Airport last month.
Iliana Lick’s arrest made national headlines as the Trump administration steps up efforts to increase immigration enforcement at American airports.
Lick, 30, had been in Philadelphia since September 2024. She had a valid work authorization and a pending asylum application, but had overstayed her visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. She was arrested as she headed to Kansas City to watch Argentina play in the World Cup, transported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico instead.
“After nearly a month in custody, countless phone calls, legal proceedings, and several transfers across different states, this is a moment we have been praying and hoping for,” her boyfriend, Steven Melchiorre, 35, wrote in an update to supporters on Facebook and a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $18,000 for legal fees.
Though Lick’s release is a victory, the fight to stay in the country is far from over.
As a condition of her release on $10,000 bond, Lick had to surrender her passport and has to wear an ankle monitor.
Immigration advocates keeping track of those being arrested at the Philadelphia airport have said at least 10 people have been detained since mid-July. Of those, Lick is only the second to be released from custody.
Immigration advocate Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United, said the release of people arrested by ICE, whether at airports or during immigration check-ins, can be a crapshoot.
“You need like a CNN story and so many news articles, so much fundraising, all of that,” Chang said. “The vast majority of people can’t access that. They don’t get coverage, and that’s what the Trump administration is counting on.”
The Inquirer wrote about Lick’s case, and her story was most recently featured on CNN.
For its part, the Department of Homeland Security has said it is making sure undocumented immigrants are flying only to self-deport, offering them a $2,600 payment and a free flight home as an alternative to detention.
A New York Times report found instances of immigration arrests in at least 15 airports, with many of the cases getting follow-ups in local media markets.
Britni Zahodnick, who with her husband, Zane Schultz, has employed Lick as a babysitter for their two young children, ages 4 and 1, for more than a year, said she is grateful for the media attention.
When Zahodnick first learned of the arrest, she said, she was not seeing people talking about the issue on social media platforms. That changed in recent weeks.
In Philadelphia, people have rallied behind Lick, she said.
Donations have helped her to retain counsel, post bond, and pay fortransportation back to her South Philly home.
Zahodnick hopes attention to cases like Lick’s highlights how immigration enforcement is affecting people who have deep roots within their communities.
“A lot of the campaigning on this increased enforcement of immigration was really around criminals, and it just hasn’t panned out that way,” she said.
Half a year into fatherhood, Edwin Jeovanny López Cornejo found the sight of his daughter, Ashley, revitalizing after a long day at work.
It was 2014. López Cornejo, an immigrant from El Salvador, had been working at a packaging company in South Plainfield, N.J., for about seven years. He came to the United States in 2007, filed an asylum claim, and received employee authorization from the federal government after being deported the year prior, according to court documents.
As he would often do in the years that followed, he took to Facebook to express his gratitude to God and his love for his daughter.
This past Friday, Ashley Lopéz, now 12, wore all black. She stood between her paternalgrandparents as they held each other and wept at her father’s wake at Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church in Plainfield.
López Cornejo had died in ICE custody just under a week earlier at the age of 39 after experiencing what the federal agency called a medical emergency at Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center in Newark run by the private company GEO Group.
Ashley has barely been speaking. Or eating. And she does not want to be around people, María Cornejo, her paternal grandmother, told The Inquirer in an interview on Monday, speaking in Spanish.
Letters of support submitted to the court after his June arrest, remarks from his family, and more than a decade of public Facebook posts written in Spanish paint the picture of a father who deeply loved his daughter.
Twelve years ago, Lopéz Cornejo and his then-girlfriend were expecting twins, but the boy died in the fifth month of pregnancy, Cornejo said.
“She is the only child he had. You should have seen him when she was born. That man was the most joyful man with his daughter in his arms,” Cornejo said. “It was his first time being a father, and he wouldn’t even sleep so he could watch her sleep and make sure she was OK.”
López Cornejo was unable to see his daughter at Delaney Hall. He had been there for about six weeks.
Delaney Hall has been the site of high-profile political clashes representing the national conflict between Trump’s supporters and immigrant rights advocates. The detention center serves a critical role for the president’s mass deportation agenda, and complaints of poor and unsanitary conditions have sparked continuous protests, uproar from Democratic lawmakers, and a reported hunger strike inside, which the Trump administration denied happened.
In December, a 41-year-old Haitian national named Jean Wilson Brutus died one day after entering Delaney Hall, and U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez (D., N.J.) recently said another person died at the hospital after a potential seizure at the facility earlier this summer. Nationally,at least 23 fatalities in ICE custody have been reported this year as the rate has increased during Trump’s second term.
López Cornejo’s asylum claim was still pending — 19 years after he filed it — when ICE agents arrested him, according to a habeas corpus petition challenging his detention.
An undated photo of Edwin López Cornejo and his daughter, Ashley, in a pool.Courtesy family of Edwin López Cornejo
Around 9 a.m. June 18, López Cornejo headed out to pick up his car from a towing company, where it had been taken for being parked for too long, his mother recounted Monday. She urged him to take a taxi and avoid walking, given a heightened fear of running into ICE in the community.
She said goodbye, unaware it would be the last time she would hug her son.
Lopéz Cornejo ended up walking because roads were closed.
Masked agentsstopped him and asked for his ID. When he produced his Salvadorian identification, they put him in an unmarked vehicle with two other people who had already been detained, his lawyer Ingrid Echeverria recounted in the habeas corpus petition.
Cornejo said her son called her from inside Delaney Hall that evening. The first question he asked was about Ashley.
According to his family and court documents, he took medicine for diabetes, epilepsy, and high blood pressure. Interruption of his strict medication schedule carries the risk of breakthrough seizures and associated harm, according to the petition. That July 24 court document did not accuse ICE of denying him his medication but expressed concern over potential medical risks if he was transferred to another facility, as the agency at one point planned.
On. Aug. 1, Cornejo got a call from University Hospital in Newark. The person on the phone told her that her son’s heart was not beating by the timehe arrived, after he collapsed at Delaney Hall. ICE has not released an official cause of death, but U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) said it was a heart attack and cardiac arrest. Days after his death, Kim and fellow New Jersey Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker put forward legislation that would require the shuttering of Delaney Hall.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said last week that her office was launching a civil rights investigation into Delaney Hall, citing reports of “alarming conditions” and recent deaths.
Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) stands between federal agents and demonstrators in an attempt to prevent a clash outside the Delaney Hall migrant detention center in Newark, N.J., on May 25.DAKOTA SANTIAGO
In response to López Cornejo’s death, ICE put out a statement saying that everyone in ICE detention gets proper, around-the-clock medical care, and that López Cornejo “was seen by medical professionals.”
His family doesn’t buy it. They blame ICE for detaining him and accuse the agency of failing to provide him proper medical care. Danilo López, his brother, said at a news conference that his brother told him over the phone that he had to fill out a form to just get Tylenol at Delaney Hall and it could be days before he received it, a claim ICE did not directly address when asked.
“He lived a normal life and worked normally while taking his medicine and with a proper diet, working more than eight hours a day, and had no problem,” Cornejo said in the interview.
Just days after her father died, Ashley López said at a news conference: “On the same day, we were both dead. The only difference was his heart stopped beating. I am going to grow up without a father.”
Family members of Edwin López Cornejo including (from left) his mother Maria Cornejo, daughter, Ashley, and his former wife, attend a news conference on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Highland Park, N.J. Yuki Iwamura
‘The true love of my life’
On his daughter’s first birthday, López Cornejo wrote on Facebook that Ashley gave him “one more reason to live.”
“I want to tell you that when I learned you were going to be born it felt like it would be forever before I had you in my arms,” he wrote. “I will never forget the first day that I changed you and gave you a feeding bottle. Wow my girl, those moments I will never forget and now you are turning one. Wow how the time passes.”
An undated photo of Edwin López Cornejo with his daughter, Ashley.Courtesy family of Edwin López Cornejo
On her third birthday, he called her “the true love of my life,” and said she motivated him to be strong and keep moving forward.
“I would be willing to give my life for yours,” he wrote.
On his own birthday, he often thanked God for another year of life. And as a birthday wish, he asked for another year to see his daughter grow.
Ashley, a U.S. citizen, was born in New Jersey, according to the petition, which includes her birth certificate and public school records to support his lawyer’s argument that López Cornejo has community ties. The documents show she receiveda certificate of achievement for math at 9 years old “for demonstrating fluency of division” in less than six seconds. And shortly after she turned 10, she was crowned “Art Leader of the Week.”
Ashley lived with her dad half the week, but he picked her up from school every day, and she would run into his arms to greet him, Cornejo said. He took pride in her success in school.
“He would tell her, ‘I want you to be a doctor so you can cure me one day,’” she said.
Family members of Edwin López Cornejo arrive at an Aug. 4 news conference in Highland Park, N.J.AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
A hard worker
López Cornejostarted working in construction just three weeks before his detention after the warehouse he worked at changed locations, his mother said.
Court documents show he worked at UpperClass Warehouse in South Plainfield from March 2021 until this May, and he previously worked multiple restaurant jobs in New Jersey. He paid taxes to the state of New Jersey and the federal government.
Jesse Fischbein, vice president of finance at Just Packaging, where López Cornejo worked from 2007 to 2015, said in a letter of support attached to the petition filed with the court last month that he “truly was a company-first employee, who didn’t believe that the workday was simply 7 AM to 3:30 PM.”
“He was punctual, always pitching in to help other employees when his tasks were completed, and always asked management if there was more to be done,” Fischbein wrote.
People detained inside Delaney Hall stand at windows in Newark, N.J., as demonstrators gather outside on May 28, 2026. The protests were fueled by reports of detainees staging a hunger strike over the conditions of their confinement.TODD HEISLER
ButFischbein said there was one thing López Cornejo would always be better at than his job: being a father.
“From what I know about him outside of work — he is a father, and that is the job he excels at more than any function he performs for my company,” Fischbein said.
A coworker-turned-friend, Juan Zavala, said in another letter of support that López Cornejo had “earned the respect of everyone around him” through kindness, compassion, respect, and honesty.
“He is a loving, responsible, and caring parent who is deeply involved with his daughter’s life and always puts her well-being first. It is very clear that his family means everything to him,” Zavala wrote.
One of the ways López Cornejo expressed himself to his loved ones was by sharing links to music on Facebook. He dedicated love songs to his daughter and others, he shared reflections during the pandemic with a Christian worship song, and he said the music video for “Pose”by Daddy Yankee — the singer known for the hit song “Gasolina” — inspired him to learn to dance reggaeton.
López Cornejo and Ashley dreamed about dancing together at her quinceañera, a celebration for her 15th birthday.
“He just wanted to dance the waltz with his little girl, and they so looked forward to that party,” Cornejo said, crying. “Now my little girl won’t have her dad.”
Family members walk to the church side entrance during the wake of Edwin López Cornejo, after his death in ICE custody in New Jersey on Aug. 7 in Plainfield N.J.Max Blease / For The Inquirer
‘Profoundly difficult consequences’
In the July 24 petition, his lawyer called on ICE to explain why he was detained, and consider either his immediate release or a hearing in front of an immigration judge.
His lawyer said that he was served with documents in English he could not read, and that hedid nothave a criminal record and always showed up for his court dates.
His friends and family described him in similar terms in letters of support submitted to the court last month.
Kelvin E. Urquilla Flores, who met López Corneja at Just Packaging nearly 20 years ago, described him as “a peace-loving, law-abiding individual” who is “an asset to this country and to his community.”
Edgar Fabián Guaman, who said he had known López Cornejo for almost two decades, said that his family friend did not present a risk to the community — but instead improves the well-being of those around him.
“I respectfully express that a possible separation of Mr. López Cornejo from his family unit would have profoundly difficult consequences for his daughter and his mother, who depend on his presence, support, and emotional stability,” Guaman wrote.
An undated photo of Edwin López Cornejo and his daughter, Ashley.Courtesy family of Edwin López Cornejo
Through his Facebook posts, López Cornejo shared a deep appreciation for his parents. In May 2016, he thanked God for giving him “an exemplary mother,”whom he also described as a “second mother” to his own daughter.
“Maybe I’m not the perfect son, but I try to behave at your level, mother,”he wrote. “I know you gave me the greatest gift, life, and I will never be able to repay you, mother.”
The last post that shows up on López Cornejo’s Facebook page was a message directed to God and his daughter on her 12th birthday last November.
Staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.
The former Cabrini University campus has undergone a more than $100 million, Villanova-fueled rebirth, and students will begin attending classes and living there this month.
Large signature blue and white V’s for Villanova University are everywhere. “Ignite Change. Go Nova,” says a wall in the student recreation center. Beds in the residence halls now have navy blue sheets, and many of the buildings have been renamed to honor Villanova’s Augustinian heritage.
The Radnor campus once in dire need of maintenance sports a fresh look, including new light poles, landscaping, painting, furniture, boilers, roof repairs, a running fountain, pickleball courts, and restored architectural flourishes, in addition to upgraded educational technology for classrooms.
The university removed dead trees, installed firepits on the campus green, and connected the two campuses’ phone and internet systems.
Villanova President Rev. Peter M. Donohue walks down the stairs at the Dixon Center, which has been covered in Villanova signage and colors. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
It is all part of Villanova’s effort to make the 112-acre campus that it acquired from the shuttered Cabrini look and feel decidedly Villanovan. The campus has been closed for the last two years as the planning and upgrades took place.
“It’s always been a beautiful campus, but it looks very Villanova now,” said Kelly Tuzio, assistant director of Villanova’s graduate nursing program, who worked at Cabrini from 2005 to 2011.
“You can feel the change,” she said, helping to ready the Iadarola Center, the building she works in, for the opening. “Everything is just done to perfection.”
Some things remain largely untouched, like the signature statue of Mother Cabrini on the green and the Mansion, Cabrini’s former administrative building, which is on the National Historic Register. It was renamed Montefalco Hall. Masses will continue to be celebrated in the chapel: Cabrini was a Catholic university, as is Villanova.
Villanova University purchased the nearby campus of the now shuttered Cabrini University two years ago and has had the site closed for remodeling. But this fall, students will live and study there. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
And signs at the entrance to campus say: Villanova University, Cabrini Campus — a nod to Villanova’s larger promise to retain Cabrini’s legacy.
A new era of growth
The acquisition of the campus, which officially opens for fall classes Aug. 24, marks an era of new growth for Villanova.
As many other colleges have lost enrollment in recent years, Villanova plans to grow its undergraduate student body, now at about 7,000, to 8,000 over the next four years, said the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, Villanova’s president. That growth started this year with about 250 additional freshmen. And the school plans to maintain its selectivity; it admitted just 29% of applicants for this fall’s class and saw more than a 10% surge in applications over the last year.
Villanova, which has a 260-acre main campus, will expand 43% in size with the addition of Cabrini.The university’s acquisition of Rosemont College — which will be complete in 2028 — will add 58 acres, increasing Villanova’s total to 430 acres.
The Cabrini campus will house five academic departments: psychological and brain sciences, graduate nursing, education and counseling, ethics, and part of communication. About 75 faculty — 10% of the total — will be based there.
Villanova University President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue left, and Timothy Hoffman, vice provost for finance and administration, stand in front of a newly installed fountain outside Cascia Hall, which received a lot of renovations inside and out. It houses the student center. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
About 900 sophomores — roughly half of those enrolled at Villanova — will live on the campus, expanding the percentage of undergraduates who live on Villanova’s campuses to more than 80%.
In addition, more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students — about a fifth of Villanova’s overall student population — will take classes at the Cabrini campus in the fall, said Timothy Hoffman, vice provost for finance and administration.
“I’m just excited to see life again on the campus,” said Michelle Filling-Brown, formerly dean of academic affairs at Cabrini and now associate vice provost for the integrated student experience at Villanova.
She has been designing themed living and learning communities for the new Cabrini campus.
Michelle Filling-Brown, a former top administrator at Cabrini, now works at Villanova.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Started in 1957, Cabrini was the only college founded by Sister Francesca Cabrini’s Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The university announced in 2023 it would shut the next year and Villanova would take it over, giving students and employees a year to find a new runway. The decision came as enrollment plummeted, finances tightened, and deferred campus maintenance mounted.
Donohue said Villanova has not yet made specific plans for Rosemont.
A classroom with new educational technology at the Iadorala CenterSteven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Before beginning renovations, Villanova invited Cabrini alumni to collect memorabilia, Donohue said. The school also donated truckloads of old furniture and materials that it did not plan to use to nonprofits.
A $170 million-plus investment
The university has invested more than $170 million into the Cabrini purchase, including the $70 million it paid to close out Cabrini’s debt and acquire its land, buildings, and assets, and more than $100 million on renovations. Donohue said it will take just four years for the school to recover that money through the operation of the campus.
The university was able to keep $15 million of Cabrini’s $42 million endowment, the school said.
Though the campus has not officially opened yet, a few students have begun to move in. Last Tuesday, a group of young staff members huddled in a room, planning grand-opening activities. Others unpacked and organized nursing equipment.
Graduate student Curtis Wesley stops by the Iadarola Center where he will study this fall.Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Curtis Wesley, 26, an incoming graduate student in the nurse anesthesia program, strolled out of the building where his classes will be.
“I just wanted to come and check it out,” said Wesley, who is from Kansas. “I was excited to see all the new technology.”
Timothy Hoffman, vice provost for finance and administration, emerges from the stone-walled turret leading to what will be a Villanova apparel shop. The turret was uncovered during remodeling at Cascia Hall. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
One of the buildings that received the most renovation was the former Grace Hall, now Cascia Hall, home to the student center. The building used to be a stable house for the Woodcrest Mansion. Over the years, Cabrini put up drywall and turned much of it into office space.
Villanova knocked those walls down and uncovered architectural flourishes including gargoyle-like stone carvings and a cavernous, stone-walled turret with a wooden-framed doorway, leading to what will be a Villanova apparel shop.
Renovations at Cascia Hall uncovered some architectural flourishes, including these stone carved gargoyles. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
The Dixon Center will remain an athletic facility, but now the basketball court has a large V in the center and the smoothie bar will offer treats such as the Brunson, named after Villanova Wildcats basketball star-turned-New York Knicks standout Jalen Brunson, and the Father Peter Power, honoring the university president.
Donohue couldn’t name the ingredients in his new signature drink.
“I didn’t know it existed,” he said.
The facility, which also got new cardio equipment and reupholstered weight benches, will be used for non-varsity sports recreation.
Villanova President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue overlooks the basketball court at the Dixon Center. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
“Our intramural basketball activity goes into the wee hours because we’re limited in our number of courts, so we are delighted to have this space,” Hoffman said.
The Iadarola Center, Cabrini’s former science building, includes a new nursing simulation facility that Cabrini had recently finished. But Villanova added upgrades, including a vivarium for psychology department research and more space for the brain science program. The former Cabrini library has been converted into student study space.
‘Many more dorm options’
Seven residence halls will house students, including two that had been closed amid Cabrini’s enrollment decline. One of them had a malfunctioning boiler — not anymore.
Sophomores were given the choice of living at Cabrini. Villanova ran tours of the campus for students last academic year. Those who chose Cabrini said they were attracted to the renovated dorms and larger room configurations that allow them to live with several roommates and share a bathroom. Options on main campus for sophomores are largely limited to doubles with a large bathroom shared by an entire floor or wing.
Villanova University sophomore Molly Dunphy-Culp has moved into her new apartment on the Cabrini campus.Courtesy of Molly Dunphy-Culp
“With Cabrini, there are so many more dorm options,” said Molly Dunphy-Culp, 19, a sophomore who was born in Boston and grew up in Abington.
She will be sharing an apartment in Lecceto Hall with three classmates.
She acknowledged that she will have to take the shuttle to main campus for classes, but said the short ride will be worth it. Dunphy-Culp also has a job on Cabrini as a recreation center supervisor — another plus for living there.
About half the students on campus will be allowed to have cars. Sophomores do not have that option on main campus.
“Two of my close friends are both going to have cars on campus,” said Ella Hayman, 19, a sophomore from just outside Boston. “This will give us a little more freedom we didn’t have last year. That was a big motivation.”
Shuttle buses including this one will transport students between Villanova’s main campus and the Cabrini campus 1.9 miles away. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Thirteen shuttle buses will transport students between the two campuses, which are 1.9 miles apart — a seven- to 12-minute ride, Hoffman said. A team of Villanova employees over the last couple of years visited five universities with multiple campuses, including Lehigh and George Washington, to learn how best to integrate them. They looked closely at models for a shuttle system that would keep students informed of where and when buses would be arriving and departing, Hoffman said.
Among new dining options on the campus is the restaurant-style Table 1842, named for Villanova’s founding year, where students can order off a menu. It is located in the former Founder’s Hall, now Bellesini Hall, which also was heavily renovated, including the installation of a new entrance that leads directly into dining facilities so people do not have to climb as many steps.
Bellesini has become the third-largest classroom building at Villanova. Some of the nearly 30 classrooms on the Cabrini campus had to be expanded to accommodate slightly larger class sizes, Hoffman said. Cabrini’s classes were 12 to 14, and Villanova starts at 16, Hoffman said.
Villanova University President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue left, and Timothy Hoffman, vice provost for finance and administration, walk through the Dixon Center. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Some improvements are still to come, including renovations to the former Mansion, which will be costly, and a nature trail, Donohue said.
Villanova named Francesca and Xavier Halls for Mother Cabrini and is continuing Cabrini’s Center for Immigration; Villanova converted it to the Mother Cabrini Institute on Immigration. Villanova also launched an elementary education major in honor of Cabrini’s former program.
Preserving a legacy
“They had a strong desire to make sure some of their legacy lasted, and we wanted to protect that,” Donohue said.
The game room at Cascia HallSteven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Coincidentally, there is a stained glass window of St. Augustine — namesake of Villanova’s founding order — in Cabrini’s chapel and a stained glass window of Mother Cabrini in Villanova’s Corr Hall chapel.
Filling-Brown, the former Cabrini administrator now at Villanova, said it seems meant to be.
“It’s beyond my wildest dreams for the campus,” Filling-Brown said. “It’s the best outcome to see Catholic higher education continue on that campus.”
Villanova President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue discusses all it took to remodel the Cabrini campus. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Immigration advocates say at least 10 people have been arrested by ICE at Philadelphia International Airport since July 12, including a 68-year-old grandmother and the young babysitter of three children.
That comes amid a nationwide push by the Trump administration to increase arrests at American airports, spurring immigration attorneys to warn noncitizens with limited documentation that travel has become risky, including for those with valid work permits or pending applications for relief.
“People might not think Philly is being targeted, but we are,” said Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United, an advocacy group. “They’re trying to threaten people, trying to intimidate them — you can’t work freely, you can’t travel freely, you can’t fly.”
She said the arrests in Philadelphia include three people originally from Indonesia and others from India, Ukraine, China, Chile, and Argentina. Another person, a religious leader, was briefly taken into custody and released, she said.
Chang described the arrests in Philadelphia as especially troubling because the airport is owned and operated by the city.
She questioned why that property would not be subject to Philadelphia’s recent “ICE Out” legislation, which bars U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting operations on city-owned lands and bans access to city-owned spaces, absent a judicial warrant.
Steve Papelian, 73, drove more than an hour from Nazareth, Pa. to the Philadelphia International Airport to protest the deployment of ICE agents to international airports across the U.S. on March 24. The former school teacher believes that ICE should target criminal activity, not “moms and pops with kids,” he said.Henry Savage / Staff
Sam Scavuzzo, chief of staff for the city law department, said in a statement that “federal law enforcement access to particular areas of the airport is governed by federal law.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said airport arrests are occurring because the Trump administration “reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country.”
“Under President Trump, DHS will no longer tolerate this. This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”
The department said “being in detention is a choice,” and the federal government is offering people who are here without permission a $2,600 payment and a free flight home.
Self-deportation can preserve the right to later come back to the U.S., absent the penalties that accompany a government deportation.
DHS said people who do not leave voluntarily “will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”
On July 11, what started out as a fun soccer trip for a South Philadelphia babysitter ended with her being arrested and ultimately moved across the country to an ICE detention center in New Mexico.
Steven Melchiorre, 35, a health worker, said that at 7 a.m. that day he dropped off his girlfriend, Iliana Lick, 30, to fly to Kansas City. Originally from Buenos Aires, she planned to see the Argentina national team play in the World Cup.
On July 11, what started out as a fun soccer trip for a Philadelphia babysitter ended with her being arrested and ultimately moved across the country to an ICE detention center in New Mexico. Iliana Lick legally entered the U.S. in 2023, though her visa later expired. She cares for the children of two South Philadelphia families.Courtesy of Steven Melchiorre
She texted Melchiorre from inside the airport to say the line was short, then did not answer his reply.
After a while, he said, Lick phoned, crying, to say she had been arrested by ICE. She was moved from Philadelphia to the Cambria County prison, which holds prisoners for the agency in south-central Pennsylvania, and in the following days was transferred to ICE facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico.
Late Friday afternoon, an immigration judge in New Mexico set bond for Lick at $10,000, according to her boyfriend. He immediately began working to post that bond and bring her home. It was not clear how quickly Lick might be released.
DHS said Lick was arrested during a targeted operation, having overstayed her visa.
The department noted that work authorization or a pending application for immigration relief, both of which Lick has, do not confer legal status to be in the United States.
ICE began to deploy agents at U.S. airports in March, and the move was announced as a way to assist at checkpoint lines during a partial government shutdown.
The deployment quickly proved controversial, as travelers and labor unions objected, saying the agents were intimidating and lacked aviation training.
A group of federal immigration officers walk through O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on March 23, 2026. From large cities like Chicago and Las Vegas to small suburbs outside Milwaukee and San Antonio, immigrants have been picked up and detained at courthouses, ICE check-ins and traffic stops, with daily arrests doubling in the last week of June and continuing to climb.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS
Airports rank among the most sensitive public spaces in the country, traversed by millions of people, including U.S. citizens, noncitizens, and mixed-status families, California immigration lawyer Andrew Neitor wrote for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a legal group.
The introduction of ICE agents, he said, blurs critical lines between airport security and immigration enforcement, around what authority is being exercised and by whom, and over the legal protections due to people who may be arrested.
“ICE was not intended to be omnipresent in daily civic life,” Neitor said. “Yet its footprint has expanded from courthouses to neighborhoods, workplaces, and even parking lots, shifting from targeted enforcement to visible, normalized presence.”
Last year, the Transportation Security Administration and ICE signed a memorandum of agreement that outlined how ICE would share information with TSA to identify people in whom ICE was interested, according to the memo, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the watchdog group American Oversight. The agreement said sharing the data would enhance national security, transportation safety, and immigration management.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan introduced a bill, the No TSA Data for ICE Act, that would bar the agencies from coordinating to conduct what her office called “a dramatic violation of privacy rights.”
The bill would ban TSA from sharing passenger names, birth dates, and other data that enable ICE to target immigrants who are in the process of changing status, including those awaiting visa extensions or who recently married U.S. citizens.
“TSA is readily offering up our immigrant residents to suffer at the hands of ICE agents so they can fulfill their daily arrest quota,” Tlaib said in a statement. “Immigrants should be able to safely fly in this country without the fear of arrest or deportation.”
Today ICE is making record numbers of arrests across the country, not only at airports but also at places that were once considered off-limits, including routine immigration check-ins.
A hat belonging to Iliana Lick sits on a table in the home she shares with her partner, Steven Melchiorre, in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 4. Lick has remained in ICE custody since her detention at Philadelphia International Airport on July 11, 2026.Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
In June in Philadelphia, a 36-year-old survivor of slavery who had fled Mauritania, a mostly desert land in West Africa, filed suit in federal court over the issue. He accused ICE of having unlawfully rescinded a policy that generally allowed immigrants to pursue their cases without fear of arrest.
Nationally, the rate of ICE arrests topped 1,300 a day in June, and grew again to a record 1,474 a day during the first 11 days of July, Syracuse University professor and immigration-data analyst Austin Kocher reported.
Some of those being arrested at airports had legally entered the United States, then stayed after their visas expired. That includes some, like Lick, who were seeking to legally change their immigration status while in the U.S.
Lick, now of Point Breeze, legally entered the country in 2023. She held and extended a visa, and holds work authorization and a REAL ID driver’s license, her boyfriend said. She was trying to adjust her status before her visa expired and continued to do so afterward, Melchiorre said.
Lick works taking care of three children for two South Philadelphia families.
Britni Zahodnick and her husband, Zane Schultz, have employed Lick as a babysitter for their two young children, ages 4 and 1, for more than a year. They described her as soft-spoken, kind, attentive, funny, thoughtful, and a good listener.
“She was very quickly thought of as family,” Schultz said.
Trust does not come easily for any parent preparing to place their children in another’s hands, but Lick won theirs, the couple said.
“All the things you would look for in a caretaker for your kids,” Zahodnick said.
Illiana Lick with partner Steven Melchiorre in New York City. On July 11, what started out as a fun soccer trip for a Philadelphia babysitter ended with her being arrested and ultimately moved across the country to an ICE detention center in New Mexico. Iliana Lick legally entered the U.S. in 2023, though her visa later expired. She cares for the children of two South Philadelphia families.Courtesy of Steven Melchiorre
Melchiorre acknowledged that ICE had legal authority to detain Lick. He said people should follow immigration laws — but the couple thought Lick was doing so. They did not know domestic flights were in question, having flown in the past without incident.
Melchiorre said he was surprised and frustrated by her arrest, “because Iliana has not committed any crime, hasn’t missed any fees, hasn’t missed any court dates. She wasn’t trying to dodge immigration. Being detained, it’s similar to how criminals are treated.”
Today’s newsletter is all about things I thought I was done writing about: COVID-19, Kamala Harris, and the World Cup. Regarding the latter, FIFA strongman Gianni Infantino walked off the pitch after last month’s final like the hero in Steve Miller’s “Take the Money and Run”: He got the money — an ungodly $15 billion in revenue — thinking he got away. But instead, just like Icarus, Infantino flew too close to the sun. A plan to make even more cash off the world’s greatest sporting event — by selling a share to private investors led by the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law — outraged so many folks that the FIFA chief could lose his job. What a shame.
The right can’t shut up about COVID-19 because it needs your outrage against experts
Workers move bodies to a refrigerated truck from the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in the Brooklyn borough of New York in April 2020.AP
Honestly, I thought — and hoped, frankly — that I’d written about the COVID-19 pandemic for the last time by the end of 2021. The issues it raised — about everything from public health preparedness to conspiracy theories — had seemed important enough, but I was more than ready to move on from empty baseball stadiums and masks in the supermarket.
I thought most folks felt the same way — that we were all eager to put the coronavirus in the rearview mirror. Clearly, I was wrong. The people we call MAGA still can’t stop yelling about it.
Last week brought the acid flashback of the government’s communicable disease czar when the pandemic erupted in 2020,Anthony Fauci,getting dragged before a U.S. Senate committee in a Joe McCarthy fashion, forced to take the Fifth Amendment to avoid any perjury traps that would satisfy the senators’ mouth-breathing constituents’ raw lust to imprison the 85-year-old public health icon.
The realization that they weren’t going to send Fauci — who was pardoned for his past actions in January 2025 by outgoing President Joe Biden to protect the good doctor from GOP wrath — up the river led these Republican statesmen to do the only thing left: scream at him.
“Who the f— do you think you were for doing that?” Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno yelled at Fauci, even as it’s hard to understand what “that” was, except for working tirelessly to give Americans the best information about a rapidly evolving, deadly pandemic. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.”
The baseless attacks on Fauci by right-wingers — who’ve convinced themselves that the real crisis of 2020-2021 wasn’t the invisible virus that caused the early death of more than 1.2 million Americans, but an authoritarian government (led at the time by Donald Trump, but no matter) making them wear those masks and avoid those baseball games — were both infuriating and unconscionable. Still, maybe because of my aversion to reliving the pandemic, I was going to let the subject slide.
But then the current government’s top health official, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., went on CNN to double down on the Trump regime’s Big Lies about what really happened during the COVID years. And like Moreno, RFK Jr. turned the volume up to 11.
“Anthony Fauci was mismanaging the COVIDpandemic and was doing it under the Biden administration. President Trump wanted to end the lockdowns,” Kennedy loudly told CNN’s Dana Bash, inventing a farcical, backward timeline. An agitated RFK Jr. insisted the government’s priority during COVID-19 should not have been saving lives, but “protecting constitutional rights,” yet to make this fiction sound less ridiculous, the HHS chief also had to lie about the extent of thecrisis.
“There were ICUs that were empty all over the country, including in New York, at the height [of the pandemic],” Kennedy insisted.
This can no longer be ignored. There are two very important points that need to be made here.
First, when a high-ranking government official tells a lie on national television, this must be debunked immediately. The truth here is that the hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units, especially in New York City but other locales as well, were overwhelmed in the spring of 2020. So were many morgues and funeral homes, which struggled to keep up with the dead.
“I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic,” Lucky Tran, a Columbia University scientist, posted on Bluesky. “There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.”
Of course, this is just one of a number of lies about the pandemic — that the vaccines released to the public in early 2021 are dangerous (they’re not), that the virus came from a Chinese lab (it almost certainly didn’t) and not animal-to-human contact, and that Fauci led some kind of Watergate-level cover-up (his personal diaries, obtained by the senators, revealed exactly the opposite) — that are matters of faith among the political right.
Which brings us to the second big thing: Why? Why are all of these petty grievances about inconveniences we experienced six years ago still so gosh-darned important to these yelling people in 2026? Why do they want to send an octogenarian Fauci — a grandson of Italian immigrants whose life was the kind of American dream 20th-century Republicans would have celebrated — to prison?
The real virus here is anti-intellectualism — a strain that has always existed in American life, as the historian Richard Hofstadter famously wrote in 1964 — that has metastasized from a small, well-contained syndrome to overtaking the entire Republican Party. So-called rural resentment leads angry voters to think people like college professors or doctors in white coats are looking down on them.
It’s an antisocial worldview that was encouraged from on high by the likes of Big Oil executives who love it when the masses scoff at climate scientists. But the rejection of expertise reached a whole new level in 2020 when doctors like Fauci started telling Americans to wear masks or avoid social gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Sure, there were tough calls around issues like how long to close schools, but in real time, health experts were erring on the side of caution — the right thing to do — while shell-shocked regular folks stewed about an assault on their liberty.
As the revived Fauci controversy continued online this week, Mike Adams, whose website has been accused of spreading medical disinformation, posted Monday on X that getting a COVID-19 vaccine “reveals a twisted and artificial obedience to the falsified appearance of authority. People like that should never be trusted, because they are not in control of their own minds.”
They believe experts like Fauci don’t want to help you, but control you — welcome to the far right’s Bizarro World.
But still, why? At the end of the day, these extremists might care somewhat about thwarting climate science or not wearing masks, but the real reason they despise educated experts is because facts shatter the ancient, lie-based hierarchies such as white supremacy, the patriarchy, or homophobia that give meaning to their broken world.
I think some of the reason they still care so much about Fauci is that the pandemic spring of 2020 also brought the police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter marches that shocked many of the communities where they occurred. In their minds, all of it — masks, diversity training, vaccines, calls to “defund the police” — merged into one giant threat.
Which brings us to: Why now? There’s no question that the lingering resentments of 2020-2021 over both the coronavirus and the Floyd protests were the rage fuel that revived Trump, who looked dead in the water after his failed coup of Jan. 6, 2021. Now, it’s less than 100 days until a new election that could cripple Trump and his MAGA movement. And they are desperately waving the bloody shirt of COVID-19.
We must never forget the truth about 2020, Fauci, or the necessity of public health in a true democracy. Our anti-science government is seeing rising cases of measles and of the bacteria that causes explosive diarrhea (which has now been linked to two deaths), and God only knows what elseis in the pipeline.
Experts like Fauci aren’t here to tell you how to live your life — just how to not die.
Yo, do this!
I remain fascinated with the hidden history of American reactionary movements, which is coming out of the shadows during the Trump era. I’ve been listening to the audiobook of The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915 by College of Charleston historian Joseph Kelly, which looks at how the defense of slavery in the antebellum South, Jim Crow, and the early 20th century revival of the Ku Klux Klan all bore the defining characteristics of an American strain of fascism, often for the self-preservation of monied interests. In the same mode, I highly recommend a recent New York Times guest essay, “It Wasn’t a Civil War. It Was the Slaveholders’ Rebellion,” by history writer Anthony Conwright, who argues persuasively that the name most of us have always used to describe the 1861-1865 conflict is actually a whitewash pushed by the South. The piece is a real eye-opener.
Did I mention that 2026’s summer of soccer isn’t over? The Philadelphia Union have emerged from the two-month World Cup break with a completely different look from the group that tanked in the first half of the MLS season, with the return of Kai Wagner (from England) and Quinn Sullivan (from injury) and rising young stars Neil Pierre and Cavan Sullivan, Quinn’s brother. They’ll also get a fresh start for a trophy opportunity with the arrival of the Leagues Cup tournament against the best teams of Mexico’s Liga MX. Check out their first match Thursday night at 8 p.m. against traditional powerhouse Cruz Azul, live at Subaru Park in Chester and on Apple TV.
Ask me anything
Question: Do you believe the Dems have a chance to take the Senate in November? — Elise (@bnat4.bsky.social) via Bluesky
Answer: Elise, I’d almost bank on it happening, and here’s why. Since the early months of the Trump 47 presidency, Democrats — who need to gain four seats for a majority — have consistently run double digits ahead of past performance in special elections. That should put seven states in play, with the strongest possible candidates in places like North Carolina (ex-Gov. Roy Cooper), Alaska (ex-Rep. Mary Peltola), and Iowa (Josh Turek). Maine voters will forget the Graham Platner fiasco long before they forget Sen. Susan Collins’ vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Ironically, the battle to hold a Democratic seat in Michigan looks toughest, but likely primary winner Abdul El-Sayed is an excellent campaigner. As Trump’s popularity plummets, there’s even a chance for shockers in places like Florida or with independent candidates in Nebraska or Idaho. For me, the bigger question is whether 51-plus Dems will dump Chuck Schumer as their leader after November. Stay tuned.
What you’re saying about …
Many of you had great ideas for a fall Democratic message that’s about more than just “affordability” — the preferred mantra of the party’s consultant class. Many sought to widen the conversation to issues around corruption and inequality. Here are some pithy ones. Roberta Soules wants to “take power away from the large corporations and oligarchs.” Meg Berlin suggested “More Butter. Fewer Guns.” Dane Madsen prefers “Stop the Trump Crime Family,” while Frank Friedman went with an even simpler, “We will be honest with you.” Stephen R. Rourke wrote simply, “Peace, prosperity, and justice for all.”
📮 This week’s question:CNN is reporting that the Pentagon recently took the highly unconventional step of asking rank-and-file troops for creative new ideas on how “to punish Iran.” But what should be done about this mess? Can the United States simply walk away at this point? Or do big problems like the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz or Iran’s nuclear ambitions require a response, and what is that, exactly? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “Iran war ideas” in the subject line.
Backstory: Is Kamala Harris ‘the new Nixon’?
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a concession speech for the 2024 presidential election, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin
Although it’s true that, as a 5-year-old kindergartner in 1964, I nearly got into a fight with a kid who said he supported Barry Goldwater, the first presidential election I really followed came four years later in 1968. I was probably waiting for the baseball scores when I saw news reports that the GOP front-runner was a “New Nixon,” which made this 9-year-old wonder what was wrong with the old one. Indeed, a Californian who’d lost a presidential election (and a gubernatorial race just two years later) stunned America with the political comeback that made him the 37th president. We’d spend the next six years of Kent State and Watergate learning the kinder, gentler Richard Nixon of 1968 was all a lie.
It would be a Nixon-level comeback if Kamala Harris were to win the Democratic nomination in 2028, let alone the presidency. Like Tricky Dick, Harris is a child of the Golden State and former vice president to the oldest-ever POTUS at that time (Dwight Eisenhower was 70 when he left office, which was unprecedented before Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden, and now Donald Trump), and a failed nominee, although shewas smart enough not to run for governor when she returned home. People forget the brief lightning bolt of excitement when she replaced Biden on top of the 2024 ticket, and so the smart money has been that her moment has passed, as the Democratic base looks for new blood.
But it feels like the earth has shifted a bit, and the reason can be summed up in two words: South Carolina. Last week, the Democratic National Committee unveiled its list of the first six presidential primary states, and the South Carolina primary tops the list. The same South Carolina where, in 2020, the state’s main Democratic voting bloc — older, center-left, Black members of the middle- or working classes — turned the race around for Biden, the man who then tapped Harris as his veep. The same South Carolina whose Democratic power broker, Rep. James Clyburn, is close to Harris. A state that seems tailor-made for a Harris comeback.
But the Palmetto State isn’t the only reason to start taking a Harris return seriously. In politics, your weakness is often also your strength, or vice versa. Harris has long been a political chameleon — from tough 2010s prosecutor to a sharp left turn during Trump’s first term that she backpedaled away from in 2024. Today, Harris is feeling the zeitgeist. She is drifting left again, but perhaps more importantly, she understands the desire by core Democrats to support fighters, not milquetoast cowards.
“They are ruthless,” Harris told the annual gathering of the National Urban League in Nashville on Friday, referring to Republicans. “We need to be ruthless, too” — explaining that Democrats should not be “cruel,” but “uncompromising.” She added: “For example, and I know this is going to be controversial coming from me, in particular, we need to revisit the Electoral College. We need to revisit the point of expanding the court to 13 justices, like we have 13 district courts. We need to revisit, if they so want, statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.” Harris has also been holding extensive meetings with some of the pro-Palestinian activists who often clashed with her over Israel policy in 2024.
She’s running? It sure sounds like it.
To be clear, while I thought in the fall of 2024 that Harris had thepotential to become a very good president, and I still do, I’m also very much in the “new blood” camp when I think about 2028. I’d love to see what someone from the progressive Bernie Sanders-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the movement could do in wiping away the stain of Trumpism. But establishment Democrats, intentionally or not, have thrown Harris a lifeline with their South Carolina gambit. The coming months will reveal whether this former vice president can be “the new Nixon” of the left.
What I wrote on this date in 2013
I was reminded that the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is almost upon us. Expect a lot of what you might call negative nostalgia about that wretched day in 2001, but also the bad times that followed. Do you remember the terror alerts? Many of us thought those would vanish when George W. Bush left the White House, so it was a little jarring when Barack Obama continued the practice, including this major one 13 years ago. I wrote that “the problem with the terror warning of 2013 is not the warning itself but the decade of government baloney that preceded it. Washington needs to acknowledge the reality: If it wants to do a better job of keeping the public safe, it will need to start doing a much, much better job of telling the public the truth.”
The Trump regime’s cruel campaign against our immigrant neighbors is the biggest story of our time. Last week, I traveled to a tiny borough in Central Pennsylvania, Mount Holly Springs, where a budding partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has seized 32 immigrants in just four months, and angrily divided a rural community. Pennsylvania’s small towns are becoming the front line of mass deportation. Over the weekend, the immigrant crackdown was central to my essay about the rising death toll that’s attributable to Trump’s misrule, which includes murdered deportees in Guatemala, a woman left by ICE agents to die at a Pittsburgh bus terminal, the latest civilian bombing victims in Iran, and many, many more. It’s a humanitarian crisis that demands our immediate attention.
No two people define the world-class journalism that we regularly produce here at The Inquirer more than my longtime friends Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, who could have rested on their laurels after winning the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2010. Instead, both are working harder than ever. Ruderman has applied her talent for digging to Philadelphia’s leading industry, healthcare, with remarkable results. Check out her latest exposé about a Main Line psychiatrist who lost her license after a wildly inappropriate affair with a troubled younger client. Laker remains a linchpin of The Inquirer’s investigative unit, and — joined by her colleagues Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing — she has been digging into the dark tale of a Philadelphia pornographer and his family’s mysterious ties to two missing women. Investigative reporting is essential to democracy and forging better communities, but it’s costly, time-consuming, and won’t happen without your support. Subscribe to The Inquirer today.
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The government protection that allows more than a million immigrants to live and work in the U.S. because it is unsafe for them to go home expired last month for people from Syria and Haiti.
It is set to conclude for more than 170,000 people from El Salvador in September, and in October 100,000 from Ukraine could face the same termination of temporary protected status (TPS).
The Trump administration promises to deport those who lose legal status ― a fate advocates say is guaranteed to hurt immigrant families that include spouses and children who are American citizens.
But immigration researchers and organizations say that immigrants will not be the only ones hurt, that the rest of the U.S. will pay a big financial price ― in lost taxes, wages, spending, and services, as large numbers of workers and dollars exit the U.S. economy.
The nation’s 1.3 million TPS-holders work at higher proportions than the country as a whole, pay billions of dollars each year in federal and local taxes, and contribute to the solvency of a Social Security system from which they are unlikely to ever draw benefits.
“Even if you don’t care anything about immigration in this country, removing this many highly productive workers from the economy is going to hurt Americans in their pocketbooks,” said Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a Chicago-based, bipartisan network of companies and CEOs. “Americans are going to get hit, in terms of inflation, in healthcare, in housing.”
Many TPS-holders work in critical jobs and industries. They are the people who build homes, keep restaurants running, fix plumbing and wiring, and, particularly in the case of Haitians, care for the ill and elderly.
“If you access our healthcare system in any way, shape, or form, particularly elderly care or senior care, you’re going to feel it,” said Anuj Gupta, president and CEO of the Welcoming Center in Philadelphia, “Whether it’s shortage of staff at facilities, whether it’s longer wait times to get in for the appointment that you need. … And if we start going down the road of Salvadorians, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, all having their TPS removed, then those kinds of day-to-day impacts will be more profound.”
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TPS-holders live in every state. Florida is home to the largest number, about 404,000, followed by Texas and New York. New Jersey ranks seventh, with 43,360, and Pennsylvania 14th, with 23,770, according to the National Immigration Forum.
“Certain states are just going to get obliterated by this,” said Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, a regional policy and research organization.
The Philadelphia region will get hit, too. The league examined four countries where designations are ending or at risk ― El Salvador, Ukraine, Syria, and Haiti.
In the local area, between 4,100 and 6,100 workers from those countries depend on TPS, and as many as 4,600 could lose legal employment authorization, the league said.
In the city, those TPS workers bring home $36 million to $76 million in annual salaries and pay $1.5 million to $3 million in wage tax.
The most affected local sectors are predicted to be construction, building cleaning and landscaping, trucking and warehousing, manufacturing, restaurants, and retail.
The league’s Saloni Tandon, who directs research and analytics, said area residents may notice changes in everyday life, such as the cleanliness of offices and buildings, and the speed of delivery for goods.
“Because our minimum wage is so low, there are fewer workers coming into the region,” she said. “So it’s going to get very tricky and very stressful to compensate for that.”
Stephen Miller, a key White House advisor, speaks to reporters outside the White House after the Supreme Court ruling on June 25. He called Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS “a victory 10 years in the making.”DOUG MILLS
The American Business Immigration Coalition notes that while the U.S. has only 4% of the world population, it produces 25% of all gross national product and captures 65% of global stock market value. That is tied to the strength of the economy, which depends on the growth and productivity of the workforce.
With birth rates falling below replacement levels and a shrinking pool of domestic labor, the coalition said, the United States must embrace a robust legal immigration system to ensure sustained economic growth.
That has become harder for people here under TPS.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could terminate temporary protected status for countries like Haiti and Syria, putting more than 350,000 people from those lands at immediate risk of deportation.
More broadly, the ruling appears to make Department of Homeland Security decisions about TPS unreviewable by lower courts, creating deep uncertainty for the future.
Homeland Security says TPS has officially ended for Haiti and Syria, even though cases involving stays and constitutional issues are technically alive in lower courts. The Supreme Court decision started the process for an implementation order that typically takes 32 days. Once TPS ends for individual countries, holders revert to their previous immigration status, meaning those who have no other protection will be subject to arrest and deportation.
The Trump administration has made a goal of ending TPS, insisting that “temporary” means temporary. It’s unclear if the administration may let TPS designations end on their staggered schedules or attempt to conclude the status for all holders at once.
Work authorizations for Haitians expired on Monday.
They face a forced return to a country crippled by natural disasters, governmental collapse, and ongoing gang violence.
The U.S. government warns Americans not to go to Haiti, issuing its highest “Do Not Travel” advisory. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Port-au-Prince, the capital and largest city, is controlled by criminal gangs, the violence having left thousands dead and displaced more than 1.4 million people.
White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters after the court ruling that it was safe for Haitians to return, saying it would be “crazy to say that Haitians couldn’t live in Haiti.”
Asked if people who lose TPS would be deported, he answered: “Of course. If you no longer have status in this country, then you’re supposed to be deported.”
CBS News reported last Sunday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing a operation to quickly arrest and deport Haitians — including those in Ohio, where Trump falsely accused migrants in Springfield of eating cats and dogs.
The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a California-based advocacy organization, warns against “one of the largest family separation events in modern-day history,” as TPS-holders live with an estimated 390,000 American-citizen children and 410,000 citizen adults.
Demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court after the court issued a 6-3 ruling that significantly impacts the future of Temporary Protected Status, a U.S. immigration program established by Congress in 1990.KENNY HOLSTON
Immigrant allies are planning a rally for Haitians in Philadelphia on Thursday.
TPS is a humanitarian status that the U.S. can grant to foreign nationals whose countries are embroiled in war, environmental disasters, epidemics, or other extraordinary circumstances. It provides work authorization and protection from removal, but no path to permanent residency or citizenship.
People with TPS participate in the labor force at a rate of 85%, well above the overall U.S. rate of 63%, according to a new policy briefing from FWD.us, a bipartisan advocate for immigration and criminal justice reform.
About one-third of TPS households own homes and pay mortgages.
Each year, people with TPS pay about $7.8 billion in federal, payroll, state, and local taxes, and contribute $690 million to Social Security, FWD.us said.
Haitian TPS-holders pay close to a billion dollars in taxes annually, according to the American Immigration Council.
They compose a disproportionate share of nursing aides and long-term-care assistants, and any removal is expected to hurt nursing homes and assisted-living facilities that already face a shortage of workers.
“In Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, businesses will lose workers, the elderly will lose caretakers, and families will be separated,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a Washington-based advocacy organization.
The pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce has urged the Senate to pass legislation that would extend protections for Haiti, in order “to prevent significant disruption to America’s workforce and avoid an unnecessary humanitarian crisis.”
The chamber knows TPS was never intended to be permanent, it wrote in a letter to Senate leadership, but the reality is hundreds of thousands of Haitian nationals have lived and worked lawfully in the U.S., “contributing to communities and filling critical positions throughout the American economy.”
At the same time, widespread violence and governmental dysfunction in Haiti “make safe and orderly large-scale repatriation unrealistic.”
Ukrainians in the U.S. face a similar situation.
Many have nothing to return to ― their homes were destroyed in the war. Or they lived in cities that face constant bombardment, making any return potentially deadly.
The Philadelphia region has been a main resettlement area for people escaping the war, spurred by the vitality of a local Ukrainian community that is tens of thousands strong. Now Ukrainians who fled to the U.S. see their TPS scheduled to end on Oct. 19, and wonder how they will afford food and housing if that happens.
“People are really panicked,” said Iryna Mazur, the honorary consul of Ukraine in Philadelphia.
Ukrainians need both an extension and a redesignation of TPS ― the latter allowing newer arrivals to qualify, she said. Employers are upset, too, worried they are about to lose good, qualified workers, including many employed as mechanics or plumbers’ and electricians’ assistants.
“They are losing their employees, and their businesses will be hurt,” Mazur said. “We need the [Trump] administration to act.”
MOUNT HOLLY SPRINGS, Pa. — Still hailed for its trout fishing, this bucolic Central Pennsylvania borough in the shadow of South Mountain was a big draw for tourists at the turn of the 20th century who flocked here to cool off in its mineral-spring waters.
In 2026, this tiny municipality about 25 miles southwest of Harrisburg is developing a much less welcoming reputation. The new notoriety began with an agreement between borough police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that has turned Mount Holly Springs into a kind of “speed trap” for unsuspecting immigrants — one with life-altering consequences.
What had been a simmering small-town controversy since the start of the year boiled over into an international incident on July 15 when a prominent Chinese dissident and U.S. asylum seeker named Wu Shaoping was pulled over by a borough officer who claimed Wu had blown through a stop sign. The Amazon delivery driver was then taken into custody by ICE agents who had been running an operation just down the road.
But the outcry over the arrest and detention of Wu — taken to ICE’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center and crammed into a room with 60 other detainees for 10 days before winning his release on bail — also exposed an even darker story.
In March, Mount Holly Springs became the only municipality in Cumberland County and one of a handful across Pennsylvania to execute a formal cooperation agreement with ICE under a controversial program known as 287(g). The program gives local cops expanded powers to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants, while offering training and financial incentives in return.
In just four months, the borough’s four police officers have pulled over and checked the status of dozens of motorists — mainly commercial truck drivers — and turned over 32 arrestees to ICE, the Mount Holly Springs Police Chief Tom Day told me on Wednesday.
The main drag in Mount Holly Springs, a small borough in Cumberland County, Pa., on Wednesday. The community has seen controversy over local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.Will Bunch
Day, a gruff ex-Marine in a Nittany Lions cap and blue jeans who doubles as borough manager, insisted to me that the traffic stops and ICE cooperation have nothing to do with racial profiling and everything to do with road safety in a borough with aging bridges and narrow streets.
“There’s no racial profiling of or ethnic profiling of drivers,” the police chief maintained. “We have no clue until we step up on the side of that truck who we’re even dealing with.” Day also said “it’s not that we don’t have a heart” — that he believes in the American dream and understands why refugees want to come here, but when immigrants show up without permission “actions have consequences, you know.”
Minutes later, I met with a gaggle of local residents and business owners who told a very different story — that the wave of immigrant arrests has created a climate of fear that permeates Mount Holly Springs. The growing uproar has riven their once-placid borough into a distrustful cauldron of angry Facebook comments, muttered asides, and occasional threats — a kind of modern civil war just 25 miles north of Gettysburg.
“What I’m hearing from my customers, our people are afraid,” saidRachel Bear, the co-owner of a popular local boutique. “Immigrants are afraid. It’s out there.” She said she’s decided to speak out against the borough’s relationship with ICE because some neighbors are intimidated. “I think they’re just scared.”
Andrew Dapkins, the owner of The “Bird Guy” Tours of local wildlife, told me he’s stopped bringing his excursions into Mount Holly Springs since the deal with ICE was signed. “If I was to bring someone of color, or they were not heterosexual male, I would feel like I was bringing them into a potential hostile environment,” he explained. “So I can’t do that.”
Some local residents who oppose Mount Holly Springs’ police federal immigration arrests include (left to right) Democratic legislative candidate Jessica St. Clair, precinct leader Mandy Taylor, borough council member Pamela Still, and business owner Andrew Dapkin.Will Bunch
What’s happened in Mount Holly Springs since the ICE program began this winter feels in many ways like a microcosm of Donald Trump’s America. It’s the rage, distrust, and paranoia that only metastasizes as the demagogue’s fiery campaign tirades get translated into harsh reality at a small-town stop sign.
But it’s also exactly the chaos that some immigration policy experts warned about when the Trump regime dramatically expanded the 287(g) program, named for a section of 1996 federal immigration law that grants broader immigration enforcement powers to trained state or local police.
Despite warnings about the potential for racial profiling and seeding distrust in immigrant communities, the number of 287(g) agreements has exploded from a few dozen when Trump first became president in 2017 to more than 2,000 today, with at least 88 on the books now across Pennsylvania.
Still, the immigration arrest total in tiny Mount Holly Springs, which covers just 1.4 square miles and has a population of fewer than 2,500 residents, seems staggering. As recently as February, there were only 67 monthly immigration arrests by local police across the entire state. But now this one borough is on a pace for nearly 100 arrests in just one year.
“This is an agenda that’s being driven by numbers for numbers’ sake,” Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told me Thursday. “There is an arrest quota that the White House is pushing, and they’re leaning on local police departments to do that work for them” — even as that work paralyzes local immigrants when they learn of increased traffic stops.
“Communities become afraid to go to the grocery store, to go to work every day, to use public transit, even,” Gupta said.
There have been festering recriminations in Mount Holly Springs since January, when residents first learned that Day — seen as a local power broker because of his dual role and his close allies on borough council — had signed the paperwork with ICE to become a 287(g) department. A handful of angry residents denounced the plan — revealed at the same time as two ICE-related killings in Minneapolis sparked national outrage. But the lone Democrat on the seven-member board, Pamela Still, failed to get a second on her push to rescind the deal.
Human rights attorney Wu Shaoping, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., in an undated photo, was arrested on July 15 and taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Handout art
Trump received just over 62% of the vote in Mount Holly Springs in the 2024 election, although local residents said there are now growing numbers of Latinos and refugees from Nepal who’ve flocked to Central Pennsylvania living in the borough that census data had reported as more than 95% white.
There is clearly considerable local support — often voiced in angry Facebook comments about “illegals” — for Day and his department’s work with ICE. “You guys are doing the right thing; don’t listen to the childless cat ladies,” borough resident Derek Scheuren told a contentious council meeting in February, as reported by PennLive. He also called undocumented truck drivers “illegal invaders” and offered to buy a beer for any officer responsible for detaining one.
That would be nearly a half-dozen six-packs, based on Day’s updated tally. We don’t know if Scheuren has made good on that, but then there’s a lot that local officials and residents don’t know. There’s been little to no information about the multiple arrests since March, and while ICE is bringing the detainees about two hours north to Moshannon Valley, next to nothing is known about their fates.
Locals like council critic Still have also pressed for answers on the carrot of federal dollars that state and local supporters of these 287(g) programs cite as a key benefit. Day only volunteered to me that in addition to federal training of all four borough officers, he has so far put in for just $1,100 in reimbursement for officers’ time on 287(g) stops. But in an email he also sent to local leaders Wednesday, which was shared with me, Day further acknowledged that Mount Holly Springs has received some $130,000 for vehicles and equipment.
The July 15 arrest of Wu, which drew the attention of the New York Times, the Guardian, and other outlets, has so far brought more questions than answers about what’s really happening with immigration arrests in Mount Holly Springs.
The stop sign at Hill Street and State Route 34 in Mount Holly Springs, Pa., where Chinese dissident and asylum seeker Wu Shaoping was stopped by a local police officer on July 15. Wu’s arrest sparked controversy over the borough’s relationship with federal immigration.Will Bunch
Day insists that Wu, making Amazon deliveries in his Toyota Camry, ran the stop sign at the bottom of steep Hill Street and nearly collided with his officer who happened to be patrolling the main drag, State Route34. The chief said Wu exacerbated the situation by refusing to roll down the window and instead calling his lawyer — causing a commotion that attracted attention from ICE agents who happened to be in Mount Holly Springs doing truck inspections almost right across the street.
Wu disputed that account to Lancaster Online, insisting that he did stop at the intersection, then rolled a bit forward because of its poor visibility. ICE later said Wu was sent to Moshannon Valley because he’s overstayed his 2020 tourist visa, even though he has an active asylum application and a work permit. He was released on bail after two members of Congress formally complained about his detention.
Still, Wu’s arrest — along with the high number of other detentions in Mount Holly Springs — has only fueled suspicion among the program’s critics that cops are racially profiling drivers. Day has repeatedly insisted in past comments and in the Wednesday interview that undocumented truck drivers who can’t read English and don’t follow signs about restricted streets and bridges are a danger to the community.
“I don’t want to sound mean over it, you know, or that I’m not sympathetic,” Day told me. “But they can’t be driving 18,000-pound vehicles and not understand our roadway signs.”
But local critics say cops working so closely with ICE isn’t making Mount Holly Springs safer — not when immigrants are afraid to shop, landscaping crews that largely employ Latinos have seemed to vanish, and a quaint rural town that seeks outside tourists for trout fishing or bird watching starts getting a bad reputation.
“A lot of times, it is this overweight thing — going over the bridge on the Pine Street extension or something is what they get pulled over for, and you know it’s like don’t ruin somebody’s life because their truck was packed or because their GPS didn’t tell them,” said longtime local resident Jen Dieter.
The arrest surge in Mount Holly Springs seems to confirm the fears of immigration experts who’ve found in earlier iterations of the program that immigrants were less likely to call 911 for emergencies or report other crimes. Critics also believe that cops will ignore their public-safety duties to focus instead on immigration arrests, especially as the carrot of federal dollars is dangled before small departments.
“There’s plenty of evidence and data to show that 287(g) agreements undermine trust in the communities where these agreements exist and are used extensively, because the community becomes less likely to report crimes, or to report instances of domestic violence, out of fear that doing so could translate to detention and deportation,” Gupta said.
Experts also say what’s happening in Mount Holly Springs may be the future of mass deportation under the Trump regime. While high-profile, publicity-seeking operations like the ones that targeted Minnesota or Chicago are out, ICE is increasingly relying on its 287(g) partners to make arrests without attracting as much public outcry. The wave of arrests in the Pennsylvania borough came as ICE is nationally reporting as many as 1,400 immigration arrests in a day, an all-time record.
Some longtime residents of Mount Holly Springs are worried that things will never be the same.
Bear, the shop owner, spoke about moving here 25 years ago and slowly building a community around her business. “This is a small community,” she said. “We all know each other. You know these people that we’re talking about, [that] I’ve done business with. You know, hopefully we’ll do it again. But who knows?”
“But more than it being about business, it’s about community. And I think this isn’t how I would treat my neighbors.”
