Issue 74
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Immigration Enforcement
Arrests, detention and removal, counted from the agencies' own filings, including the deaths and the charges that courts threw out.
What the record shows
DHS says Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a record number of arrests in August, just under 51,000 by the agency's count; the Deportation Data Project put July just under 50,000. Agreements deputizing local officers rose from 142 to 2,315. In a July snapshot of more than 65,000 people detained, 70 percent had no criminal conviction, per the Marshall Project's analysis of ICE records. Detention went from 39,000 people in January 2025 to 67,000 on 30 July.
No agency publishes a count of the dead. The Guardian counted at least 31 people dead during interactions with immigration officials in 2026 as of 29 September, 25 of them in detention. ICE posted 8 internal mortality reviews on 25 September documenting medication mismanagement and delayed emergency care, then removed them, The Intercept reports. Federal agents killed 2 United States citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis in January. Daphy Michel froze to death after ICE released her more than 20 miles from home.
At least 3 times in this administration, agents have shot someone and prosecutors have then charged that person with assault. The latest followed 20 September, when an ICE officer who was not wearing an issued body camera shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a Venezuelan delivery driver, in Austin. In earlier cases in Chicago and Minneapolis the charges were dropped, and in Los Angeles, according to a column in The Intercept, a judge threw out all charges against Carlitos Ricardo Parias with prejudice. Of 102 protesters charged with felony assault on federal officers in 4 cities, 12 reached trial and none ended in conviction, by the Associated Press's count.
Homeland Security's general counsel puts removals to third countries at roughly 25,000 people, under agreements with at least 35 countries. On 29 September the Supreme Court stayed an order requiring a chance to raise a fear of torture before such removals; arguments are set for December.
The reach runs through other agencies' records. In September the D.C. Circuit ruled that the IRS broke federal law by giving Homeland Security roughly 47,000 taxpayer addresses during 2025, and a federal judge has found the IRS violated the tax code approximately 42,695 times in disclosing taxpayer addresses to ICE.
Standing summary, carried forward and rewritten as the coverage moves. Every claim is sourced either to a dated edition below or to the named body that made the finding.
37 editions
Issue 73
The Iran War Keeps Exporting Its Costs. Riyadh Takes the Missiles and Washington Buys Russian Diesel
Issue 72
Power Turns on Its Witnesses. Six Cases, Three Countries, One Week
Issue 70
The Firing Squad Is Meant to Be Watched. The Voter Database Is Not.
Issue 68
A War It Is Losing Abroad. A Party Leaving It at Home.
Issue 66
Who Decides Is One Question. Who Pays Is the Other
Issue 64
The Record Caught Up. The Machinery Did Not Stop.
Issue 63
The State Is Turning Its Machinery Inward. Follow the Paperwork.
Issue 61
The Hearing, the Audit, and the Appropriation. Three Ways an Argument Disappears.
Issue 60
The Machinery Keeps Running. The Record of What It Does Is Getting Thinner.
Issue 59
The War Is Now a Domestic Story. The Midterms Will Be Fought on Its Price.
Issue 56
Power Was Visible. Accountability Was Not.
Issue 54
Washington Projected Power at the UN. The Argument at Home Went the Other Way.
Issue 52
Who Gets to See What Power Is Doing. The Press Ban Is Only the Loudest Case.
Issue 50
Four Institutions the Executive Does Not Own. Four Judges Who Said No.
Issue 41
A $5,000 Promise Rests on Election Machinery That Is Visibly Failing
Issue 36
The Administration Is Outrunning Review, and Losing the Argument Anyway
Issue 35
The Machinery of Who Counts Is Being Rebuilt in Public
Issue 34
The War's Real Bill Is Being Paid in Immigration Courts, Mail Ballots, and the Bond Market
Issue 30
The War's Second Front Is Economic, and the Bill Is Arriving at Home
Issue 29
Three Instruments, One Method
Issue 28
The Fight Is Over the Machinery, and the Courts Are Only Buying Time
Issue 26
The State Is Adding Capacity Faster Than It Is Adding Any Check on It
Issue 24
Coercion Is the Policy, and the Bond Market Is the Only Thing Refusing It
Issue 21
The Blockade and the Bond Market Are the Same Story
Issue 20
The Debt Crossed $40 Trillion. Nobody Counted the Trillion Going to the Pentagon.
Issue 19
Money Lost the Biggest Race on the Board, and the Surveillance State Had a Very Good Day
Issue 18
A Government That Has Stopped Showing Its Work
Issue 17
Nobody Repealed the Rules. They Routed Around Them.
Issue 16
The Enforcement Machinery Turned Inward While the Fleet Ran Out of Slack
Issue 11
The Government Does Not Build Its Surveillance. It Rents It.
Issue 8
The Senate Traded Away Its Leverage on the Way Out the Door
Issue 7
The Government Is Reaching Further Than It Can Hold
Issue 6
Money Bought Almost Everything on Wednesday, and Lost Michigan by a Point
Issue 5
Organized Money Lost Michigan, Won Missouri, and Spent the Rest of the Day Out of Sight
Issue 3
One Clock Stops for the Cameras. The Other One Never Stops.
Issue 2