Michelle Lapointe

I want to live in a country that funds CPB and not CBP.

You may have seen reports about the release of Venezuelans the Trump administration sent to a Salvadoran prison and called "the worst of the worst."
But when we set out to learn more about them, that's not what we found. 🧵

Powerful new report from my colleagues on immigration during the first 6 months of Trump 2.0 -- and what it means for our democracy.

1/ After 125 days in El Salvador’s notorious “megaprison” #CECOT, our client Edicson Quintero Chacón has been released and returned to Venezuela—alongside Jose Manuel Ramos Bastidas and 250+ others whom the U.S. paid to detain at CECOT.

This should never have happened.

Unlawful ICE Arrests at Immigration Courthouses Prompt Lawsuit by Advocates and Immigrants - National Immigrant Justice Center WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 16, 2025) — Immigrants and their legal advocates are suing to stop unlawful Trump administration policies that have resulted in the

🚨 BREAKING: NIJC @democracyforward.org ‬ @raicestexas.bsky.social & LCCRSF filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Immigrant ARC, @americangateways.bsky.social & immigrants arrested at their court hearings. ICE's actions are an attack on due process & democracy immigrantjustice.org/press-releas...

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

“This bill is a force multiplier for ICE,” Nayna Gupta, Policy Director of the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council, tells Rolling Stone.

More: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

🚨Want to know where all the immigration enforcement money is going to? We've got you covered!

- $51.6 billion for border wall ($46.6 billion for wall, $5 billion for CBP checkpoints and facilities).
- $45 billion for ICE detention
- $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement

Grand total: $170.7 billion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent hits the target. She is reminding us of the stakes in this case. And she is spot on.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Fate of birthright citizenship order unresolved after Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions The ruling was a partial victory for President Donald Trump who has made immigration his signature issue.

What happens if the order ending birthright citizenship in some states were to go into effect?

"We'll have a situation...where your constitutional rights and your rights as a citizen depend on which state you're born in," our Legal Director @michlapointe.bsky.social tells @texastribune.org.

Border Patrol pizza box ads surprise Decatur pizzeria staff, diners Mojo Pizza N’ Pub, a neighborhood pizzeria in Decatur's Oakhurst neighborhood, wants no part in a campaign featuring Border Patrol ads on pizza boxes.

What happened when ICE delivered free pizza boxes as part of a Border Patrol campaign to a pizzeria in a deeply liberal metro Atlanta town … #gapol ajc.com/politics/202...

161. The Court's Disastrous Ruling in the Third-Country Removal Case The majority did not just greenlight an especially odious immigration policy without any explanation; it did so in a case in which the government defied the district court—twice—with no consequence.

Today’s unsigned, unexplained #SCOTUS ruling clearing the way for removals of migrants to third countries without any additional process is a disaster—not just on the merits, but because of the government misbehavior that it not only refuses to punish, but effectively rewards.

Me, via “One First”:

TIRRC is dedicated to building power and advancing the rights of immigrants and refugees in Tennessee, which means we have to use every tool in our toolbox, including recourse to the courts, to challenge attacks on our communities. ✊🏽 Read more: https://tirrc.info/SB392

Opinion | When Rights Erode for Some of Us, Something Corrodes in All of Us

To demand both absolute power and absolute impunity is the demand of a tyrant.

New from me in the NYT, on the Trump administration’s attempt to zero out noncitizens’ rights, and how that inevitably implicates citizens as well. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/o...

Shortly after the Atlanta #nokings event kicked off at 10, organizers said Liberty Plaza near the state Capitol had already reached maximum capacity of 5,000.

Imposed over an image of farm workers being hunted down in the fields, a screenshot of Trump saying: "Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace."

The workers who feed us are not criminals. Most have been here for decades. We need to protect the workers who are already here from being hunted down in the fields. 

If President Trump is in charge, these raids against farms will stop immediately.

Image of border fence. Overlay text reads, "Asylum Seekers Challenge Trump's Asylum Shutdown Policy." Includes logos for Al Otro Lado, Haitian Bridge Alliance, CGRS, American Immigration Council, Democracy Forward, Center for Constitutional Rights

Quote from CGRS Litigation Director Melissa Crow reads, "The asylum shutdown policy imperils the lives of people seeking safety at the southern border and flouts our immigration laws. Under the shutdown policy, families, children, and adults fleeing persecution have been left stranded in Mexico, where they risk grave harm, with no legal recourse. Our plaintiffs include asylum seekers who, while awaiting a chance to request asylum at ports of entry, have been kidnapped, tortured, and threatened by cartels that prey on migrants. The court must step in to vacate the shutdown policy and restore access to a fair asylum process at the U.S.-Mexico border."

BREAKING: We just filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump admin's unlawful asylum shutdown policy, with partners at @alotrolado-org.bsky.social, @haitianbridge.bsky.social, @immcouncil.org, @democracyforward.org, and @ccrjustice.org.

Our joint statement: cgrs.uclawsf.edu/news/asylum-...

Trump administration hit with second lawsuit over restrictions on asylum access The Trump administration is facing a second lawsuit over the shutdown of asylum at ports of entry, a legal pathway created by Congress under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Just in: Immigration advocates filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday over the Trump administration’s use of a proclamation that effectively put an end to being able to seek asylum at ports of entry to the United States.

apnews.com/article/immi...

Wow this is wild.

A video of a citizen's ICE arrest at a worksite in Foley, Alabama (his name is Leonardo Garcia, he gave this Spanish interview last night m.youtube.com/watch?v=qT_o...) is making the rounds. But the video recorded just before that is also disturbing.

Today we blocked the Trump administration from deporting our client who was baselessly accused of being a member of Tren de Aragua.

Our client has no criminal history—just some tattoos—yet faced deportation to El Salvador's top security prison.

Thanks to today's ruling, that won't happen for now.

JUST IN: Judge Clay Land in Columbus, GA (GWBush) has granted a TRO against Alien Enemies Act deportation for a specific Venezuelan detainee there. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

HUGE. A direct rebuke to the Trump administration's practice of shoving people onto planes: "Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster."

love to make america great again by essentially expelling the people that enrich our children’s lives

6 weeks ago today, planes flew a few hundred people to El Salvador, where they’re being held at CECOT — a place from which Salvadoran officials brag no one is ever released — at US expense.

Their continued detention there is our continued shame.

The horrors are not aberrations. This is the Trump administration's plan. This is their plan. But the plan is just that — a plan. It can and must be stopped.

It’s important to understand that this is the Trump administration’s plan.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Judge Hannah Dugan, two-year-old V.L.M.

They are not outliers, exceptions, or aberrations.

This is their plan.

New, at Law Dork —>

Inside The Fight To Return The Other Men Trump Sent To CECOT When the Trump administration sent more than 200 Venezuelans to an El...

What @immcouncil.org is fighting: "The cases present a kafkaesque situation.... [T]hey were sent to a prison that is neither in the U.S. nor their country of origin with no charges and no clear legal authority justifying their continued, indefinite detention." talkingpointsmemo.com/news/inside-...

Very, very important piece about a part of the CECOT story that's gone barely discussed. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/inside-...

NEW: We @immcouncil.org just joined @nipnlg.bsky.social and @ccrjustice.org to file a habeas petition seeking an order requiring the Trump admin to end the indefinite imprisonment of Edicson Quintero, sent to El Salvador on March 15 with NO DUE PROCESS.

Like so many others, he deserves to be freed.

If the President can ignore court orders and send anyone he wants to a prison overseas, we are all at risk. An insult to the Constitution and to our values as Americans.

Abrego Garcia must be returned now.