Judge says justice department policy of checking state voter rolls against a federal immigration database is unlawful

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the US justice department’s policy of collecting states’ unredacted voter rolls to check them against a federal immigration database is unlawful.

The ruling, by the US district judge Sparkle Sooknanan, was a setback for Donald Trump, who has pushed his administration to ramp up investigations into non-citizen voting ahead of the November midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.

A ICE officer shot and injured a man in New York during an enforcement operation, federal officials said. The man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said, and the shooting quickly sparked angry protests from local residents and elected officials in the neighborhood. Early reports indicated that agents had surrounded the man and a five-year-old child in his car on a busy street before firing multiple rounds, the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said in a statement.

Immigration officer shot man in car where five-year-old child was sitting, sparking fierce protests

Leading New York Democrats expressed anger and demanded curbs on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence after a federal officer shot a man driving a car in which his five-year-old son was sitting, sparking fierce protests.

At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late on Thursday afternoon as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of New York City. Marble Hill is considered part of Manhattan, but is physically located in the Bronx.

New report on economic cost of anti-immigration campaign projects 8.6% reduction in retirement payments by 2034

Elderly Americans can expect to lose an average of $2,152 in annual social security benefits each, a projected 8.6% reduction in their retirement payments, by 2034 and every year after as a direct consequence of the economic fallout from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration campaign, if that carries on, according to a new report shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Already, US food prices are up, housing permits to build new homes are down – and even native-born Americans are losing out on potential jobs after the sudden exodus of 1.2 million foreign-born workers over the last two years as a result of Donald Trump’s policies, the report finds.

From cost of living to the Iran war, these are the issues that matter most to US voters across the political spectrum

US voters are about to deliver their first national verdict on the second presidency of Donald Trump. On 3 November, millions of Americans will vote in midterm elections to decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states. The results could have a huge impact on Trump’s final two years in office.

Today, the Guardian launches its 2026 midterm voter panel. Our reporters have interviewed nine voters across the country and the political spectrum about the issues that matter to them, from the cost of living, immigration and healthcare to the war in Iran and whether they trust their political leaders.

Police say man taken to hospital and mayor says child physically unharmed as he demands Trump stop ICE enforcement in city

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and wounded a man in New York City on Thursday afternoon during an enforcement operation, federal officials said.

The man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said, and the shooting quickly sparked angry protests from local residents and elected officials in the neighborhood.

Vice-president also says Adobe is barred from visa program that allows high-skilled workers to apply for US residency

Microsoft is suspended from applying for permanent residency for workers employed through a US visa program for high-skilled workers, JD Vance announced on Thursday.

The US vice-president accused the tech company of abusing the H-1B system, which allows those on the visa to work while they apply for and are in the process of obtaining a green card.

Children are being detained in record numbers, sometimes alone and where lawyers and family cannot find them

The image of immigration officers arresting five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos – in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack – in January sparked outrage across the country.

Celebrities from Ms Rachel to Madonna called for the closure of the Dilley immigration processing center, the Texas immigrant camp that held Ramos and many children like him. Lawyers filed complaints about contaminated food and shoddy healthcare, and hundreds of activists protested outside the detention camp. Within months, the government began sending fewer children to Dilley.

At least 73 people estimated to have joined protest against prolonged detention and Folkston facility’s ‘violations’

A group of people detained inside a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail in Georgia have launched a mass hunger strike this week to protest against their prolonged detention and the facility’s conditions, according to advocates and family members.

Advocates estimate at least 73 detained immigrants are participating in the hunger strike inside the Folkston D Ray James ICE processing center in south-east Georgia. The Folkston facility, a former state prison, is run by the private prison company GEO Group under a contract with ICE.

Armed escorts in masks pushed a group of migrants from Belarus toward Latvia and threatened Latvian soldiers, and hours later masked people crossed into Latvia and stole border surveillance cameras, Latvian Interior Minister Jānis Dombrava said on 6 October. Latvia's military described the incident as part of a continuing hybrid campaign on the border, and Ukraine's foreign minister blamed Moscow.

Russia keeps probing the EU's eastern defenses with migrants pushed from its own soil and through its ally Belarus, alongside drone incursions and sabotage that ISW has linked into one Russian pattern across Europe.

Armed escorts threatened Latvian soldiers

Latvian soldiers stopped at least 20 migrants trying to cross the border illegally from Belarus, the Latvian National Armed Forces said. Masked escorts led the group, and this time they were armed, threatened the soldiers, and urged and drove the migrants toward Latvia, the military said.

"Unlike many previous incidents, this time the provocation was particularly demonstrative and aggressive," Dombrava said.

The incident confirms that deliberate provocations and hybrid threats on the border will continue, the armed forces said. Illegal migration is being used as a tool to pressure Latvia's border and, with it, the external border of the EU and NATO, they added.

Belarus began funneling migrants toward the EU in 2021, a campaign Poland's government called a hybrid attack in which the migrants end up as weapons. In 2023, Finland closed its border crossings with Russia, accusing Moscow of the same tactic, and by mid-July Latvia had logged 111 straight days of migrants pushed across from Belarus.

Masked people stole the cameras

Several hours after the standoff, people in masks entered Latvian territory, damaged a distribution cabinet, and stole surveillance cameras, Dombrava said. They returned to Belarus before the border guard patrol could arrive.

"Belarus should understand that such incidents could lead to more serious consequences for Belarus itself," he said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine stands in full solidarity with Latvia. "Make no mistake: Moscow is behind it," he wrote, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "deliberately weaponizes migration, with the help of Lukashenka, to destabilise Europe."

Tunnels, tear gas, and damaged cameras on the border

Latvia's border guards stopped 11,384 attempts to cross illegally from Belarus between the start of 2026 and 24 September. In January, Latvia's armed forces and border guard published evidence that Belarusian security agencies were organizing illegal migration across the border. Latvia has also recorded deliberate damage to cables, distribution cabinets, and camera poles on its eastern border, aimed at slowing the rollout of an automated border control system.

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Stop arming Ukraine or we shut down your defense firms, pro-Kremlin group tells Latvia, Poland, and Portugal

On 22 July, Latvian soldiers fired warning shots and used tear gas against migrants trying to cross. The next day, Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said Russia and Belarus were stepping up their hybrid war against the Baltic States to distract from Russia's failures in Ukraine. Latvia temporarily halted crossings on the Belarus border on 31 July. In August, Latvian guards found the first tunnel dug from Belarus and turned back 15 migrants who used it.

White House denies the allegations as ‘false’ and says ‘first amendment does not protect violent rioting’

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Donald Trump ordered the FBI to investigate protesters in Los Angeles who were demonstrating against the president’s immigration crackdown, according to a whistleblower complaint.

Alex Padilla, a Democratic senator who represents California and serves on the Senate judiciary committee, said his office had received a copy of the complaint, which makes sweeping allegations about the Trump administration’s response to protests in LA in early 2025.

CBP says in response to lawsuit use-of-force cases are ‘thoroughly investigated, reviewed, and presented’

A US citizen who was shot one year ago by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent during a sweeping immigration crackdown in Chicago filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Monday, alleging the agent lied about the shooting and fired into her vehicle from behind.

Federal prosecutors initially accused Marimar Martinez, then 30, of using her vehicle to strike and box in agent Charles Exum’s sport utility vehicle on Chicago’s south-west side on 4 October 2025 during what the Trump administration named Operation Midway Blitz. Exum then exited his car and opened fire, leaving Martinez with seven gunshot wounds.

Officials file ‘denaturalization actions’ against people accused of crimes in what they call ‘largest’ such initiative

Donald Trump’s justice department has moved to strip the citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens accused of crimes in what authorities describe as “the largest” such initiative over a single period during his administration.

US justice department officials on Monday announced the filing of “denaturalization actions” against more than three dozen people alleged to have committed such offenses as “acting as an agent for a foreign government, committing voluntary manslaughter, and aggravated sodomy against a special‑needs man”.

LaMonica McIver is only the 15th member of Congress have a baby while serving, and also the only member indicted for visiting ICE facility

A US congresswoman who just gave birth to a baby girl faces a deadline this week on whether to seek a rehearing of a federal case against her by the Trump administration after an oversight visit to an immigration detention facility.

LaMonica McIver, 40, represents New Jersey’s 10th congressional district. She gave birth to her second child last Thursday – a rarity for a sitting member of Congress. She is only the 15th member of Congress to give birth while serving and part of a small subset of congresswomen who have school-age children.

Earlier this year, the ACLU filed more than 50 legal claims across 17 states on behalf of people harmed by federal immigration agents. One of them is Norma Bowe. Norma is a nurse and grandmother who was working at her mobile medical clinic outside the Delaney Hall immigration center when protests broke out there in May. An ICE officer flung her to the ground while she was still wearing her stethoscope. In today’s episode Kai Wright speaks to Norma about why she is fighting back, and why her work continues to be vital for family members of people stuck in immigration detention.

This episode was made possible thanks to Erika Hayasaki’s reporting, which you can read here: This nurse was assaulted by ICE - and it was caught on video. Now she wants her day in court

Norma Bowe, 69, was flung to the ground at Delaney Hall, the infamous New Jersey detention center. She sees her lawsuit against ICE as one step towards justice

Norma Bowe pressed a stethoscope against the 10-year-old’s chest, listening to her lungs.

It was Memorial Day outside Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey. The child, worried about her father locked inside, was hyperventilating.

Amnesty International is calling for an end to the agency, whose record of violating human rights dates back decades

ICE must be abolished.

That’s the conclusion we at Amnesty International have reached after documenting the chilling pattern of human rights violations across the US during immigration enforcement operations.

Refugees from third countries are being sent to Equatorial Guinea, where they are often sent back to the very countries they fled

For nearly a year, the Hotel Bamy in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, has been Adam’s prison. He is confined alone to a hotel room, under constant watch by the security officers and soldiers of a notoriously oppressive regime who control his movements. Not long ago, they barged into his room, handcuffed and beat him, and warned him not to tell anyone. There is no cell to point to, no charges or formal sentence, and nothing on paper to document his plight.

Adam, 26, has chosen not to share his real name or even his country of origin out of fear for his safety. He fled indefinite, forced military conscription in his home country after enduring abuse during his military service.