Due to his "lack of experience," he said, he had misunderstood federal immigration jargon and believed that De La Garza's residency bid had been denied - though it hadn't. He repeated his misunderstanding on a form that government attorneys cited in court to justify the detention. On the same form, he also wrongly reported that De La Garza had admitted to illegally entering the country in 2015.
Of the 15 officers who died in the line of duty while working for Enforcement and Removal Operations, the ICE branch charged with detaining unauthorized migrants within the interior of the US, all but two died of Covid. One deportation officer, Brian Beliso, died of a heart attack in 2020 during a foot chase. The other deportation officer to die of something other than Covid, Lorenzo Roberto Gomez, experienced heat stress during a training exercise in El Paso, Texas, leading to hospitalization.
The memo was filed as a part of documents submitted in a federal court case tied to refugees who were arrested in Minnesota. In it, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow and ICE acting Director Todd Lyons direct their agencies to "detain and inspect" refugees who do not "voluntarily return to DHS custody for inspection and examination" to be a legal permanent resident at the one-year mark of being in the country.
A girl holds a placard that reads "Free Liam" as people protest against deployment of ICE agents during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on January 31, 2026 in Milan, Italy.Maja Hitij / Getty Images The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has filed an expedited request to terminate the asylum claims of a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his family, after the boy's arrest by federal agents last month made international headlines.