ICE and Immigration

Note: The following newsletter was co-authored by Providence Associates Dr. Pearlette Springer and Jane Fischer as part of the JUSTus Episode 23 Podcast.

As of the writing of this newsletter, the situation between immigrants, protestors, and immigration and customs enforcement agents (ICE) in our country continues to be volatile. 

As we know, our current president campaigned on ridding the United States of people who entered this country illegally and removing the worst of the worst.

However, what we see is ICE agents waiting outside of courtrooms, stopping people on the streets, pulling people out of cars, and going door-to-door asking for proof of citizenship.

ICE and Border Control Activities Since January 2025

Arrests have surged across nearly all 50 states and Puerto Rico

ICE detainee totals have reached their highest in years, and enforcement patterns have changed significantly. In states with Republican governors, a larger proportion of arrests happen in jails and prisons. In many of the states with Democratic governors, arrests commonly occur in the community where racial profiling is prevalent.

ICE has gone, with administrative warrants, into schools, churches, businesses, and homes, arresting individuals, often without criminal records.

Note: An administrative warrant is signed by immigration officers instead of the courts. There are two types of administrative warrants. One authorizes the arrest of people violating immigration law.

The other authorizes the removal of people who have final deportation orders. Neither authorizes home entry without consent. And yet, ICE agents are forcing themselves through doors.

Large-scale workplace and community raids happen alongside traditional enforcement through jails and prisons.

Family separation and child detention have sharply increased, prompting urgent legal and humanitarian concern, overwhelming immigration lawyers and staff, immigration court and judges, and the Department of Justice prosecutors.

A large majority of detained individuals with NO criminal convictions, records, or history reflects a shift in enforcement priorities. Many detainees are non-criminal migrants, challenging the narrative that enforcement targets only dangerous individuals.

People detained by ICE who had no criminal convictions or pending charges skyrocketed from roughly 14.7 percent in early 2025 to about 42.7 percent by January 2026. That is more than a 1,000 percent jump in ICE detentions of immigrants with NO criminal history. Immigrants with no criminal history have become the largest group within ICE detention centers.

Demographic shifts included increases in Latino arrests in many states. The detained population has remained predominantly male and relatively young, with many from Mexico and Central America.

32 People died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Custody in 2025, and 9 people have died in 2026 as of this writing.

The Guardian reports that the thirty-two people who died in custody last year made it the agency’s deadliest year in over 20 years. 

As of mid-December, the agency was holding 68,440 people in detention centers across the country, with approximately 75 percent of them having no criminal history. December was also the deadliest month, with seven people dying in custody.  

ICE and Border Control Impact on Corporate America

Corporate America is also under increasing pressure to define its stance. Some companies have become flashpoints.

Hospitality brands have faced boycott campaigns over perceived complicity with ICE operations.

A leaked internal memo from a fitness franchise advising cooperation with ICE sparked public backlash and membership cancellations, forcing them to provide clarification.

Corporations that contract with or provide technology to ICE — such as software providers and data infrastructure firms-are facing intensified scrutiny from employees, customers, and investors wary of association with controversial enforcement actions.

The interplay between federal immigration enforcement, community resistance, and corporate behavior underscores a broader national debate about civil rights, public safety, and the ethical role of businesses in politically sensitive policy areas.

For example:

• Target Corporation, headquartered in Minneapolis, is perceived negatively by community members for its silence and neutral stance. Target stated that they do not have cooperative agreements with ICE. But they have not gone further in condemning federal enforcement, leading to boycotts and economic pressure. Some of the protests have included sit-ins, chants outside stores, and efforts to encourage shoppers to stop spending money at Target as a way to push the retailer to take a stronger public stance against ICE actions.

Most recently, Target asked protesters to leave the sit-ins, saying it is private property, and told them (protestors) to leave their premises. Yet, Target did not request ICE off its premises when ICE agents went into the store and arrested two U.S. citizens who were employees.

In a public letter addressed to the executive on Sunday, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten criticized Target for what she called its silence on ICE’s activities in Minneapolis and demanded that it clearly state that it wants federal immigration agents to leave the city.

• Capgemini Government Solutions (GCS), a French tech and consulting firm, just announced that it is divesting its US-based unit, mainly because it has contracts with ICE to provide skip-tracing software to locate foreign nationals.

The reputational and ethical concerns prompted the parent company to start the divestiture immediately. GCS stated that it could not maintain sufficient oversight to ensure its company’s values and objectives are upheld.

French lawmakers and union groups faced increased public criticism about the nature of the work CGS was performing with ICE, especially against the backdrop of intense national debate over immigration enforcement.

What are the Catholics, Other Denominations, Faith Groups, and Justice Organizations saying?

American Indian College Fund: For the safety of our Native relatives, we urge individuals to contact their tribal government offices to obtain a tribal identification card if they qualify. Please carry both state and tribal identification cards (and a passport). We continue to emphasize that Native people are citizens of both the United States and their Native nations.  In summary, we offer the following guidance for all of our relatives: Carry your tribal ID. Tribes are urging the Trump Administration to direct ICE to accept tribal IDs as proof of U.S. citizenship. For some, especially elders who may have been born in remote homes and who struggle to obtain a birth certificate, this is the best option.

The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, shared the USCCB message on immigration on November 13, 2025.   “As women religious, we have and will continue to stand with and speak up for the human dignity of all persons, now most especially immigrants in our nation.  The statement calls us to support immigrants, to end the violence directed at immigrants and law enforcement, and to work for meaningful immigration reform. We support these calls to action and invite you to join us in these efforts.”

Pope Leo. On Tuesday, November 18, Pope Leo renewed his criticism of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, slamming the “extremely disrespectful” treatment of migrants. “We have to look for ways of treating people humanely.”

Jewish Cross-Denominational Statement: “Adding our voices to millions of others across the United States, leaders of the Reform, Conservative/Masorti, and Reconstructionist Movements of Judaism [we] condemn, in the strongest terms, the violence with which the Department of Homeland Security is enforcing American immigration law — above all, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as in cities and towns across the nation.”

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of Little Rock, Arkansas, penned an op-ed in his diocesan newspaper, warning against the “dehumanization of mass, indiscriminate deportation,” drawing on his own family’s history during the Holocaust.

Episcopal Church Bishops: “The bishops express grief and righteous anger over state-sanctioned violence and ask a central question: Whose dignity matters?” Rounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the letter affirms that the answer is clear: everyone’s. More than half of all living bishops in The Episcopal Church added their names to express “grief, righteous anger and steadfast hope” in response to the aggressive federal immigration enforcement operations that have left two U.S. citizens in Minnesota dead.

U.S. Cardinal Joseph Tobin, head of the Archdiocese of Newark, has strongly criticized ICE, calling it a “lawless organization” and part of a “machinery of death.”

Cardinal Tobin urges Catholics to pressure lawmakers to defund the agency. Motivated by the concern for the common good, he explains that “it’s not simply the vindication of competing rights, but it’s rather the preservation of the common good. And so, to look at how the actions in Minneapolis or anywhere else affect the common good, those are people like whom you mentioned, the refugees, people without legal status, as well as the citizens of the US … We ask … for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can’t be separated, vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.”

How Should We Treat Foreigners, Sojourners, Strangers, And Aliens?

The Book of Deuteronomy 10:18-19 highlights God’s love for the foreigner and calls for them (foreigners, sojourners, strangers, and aliens) to be fed and clothed.

The Book of Exodus 23:9 forbids the oppression of the immigrant, noting that they understood the heart of the stranger.

Gospel of Luke 10:25-37, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, defines neighbor as anyone in need of mercy. Breaking down the barriers between foreigners, sojourners, strangers, aliens, and residents.

Sister Barbara Battista, justice promoter for the Sisters of Providence, just returned from the Kino Border (Nogales, New Mexico/Nogales, Sonora, Mexico). In her words …

“I spent the last week of January with Kino Border Initiative’s ‘Catholic Sisters Walking with Migrants’ program. We were eleven Sisters from across the U.S. hearing so many stories. Stories from migrants deported back across the border with children and spouses in the U.S., from Border Patrol agents, from ranchers along the border, and from the KBI staff. These stories will serve as motivation for our collective action in collaboration with Cardinal Tobin and other church leaders speaking up for humane and dignified migration.”

We will have a public Ash Wednesday Service from 4-5 p.m. in front of the Clay County Courthouse and Jail, located in Brazil, Indiana, which serves as an ICE detention facility for 300 or so persons.

So … What Is Ours to Do?

The worldwide outcry against how the current federal administration is handling the deportation of immigrants in our country is significant!  The scale of ICE’s operations has influenced debates over immigration policy, civil liberties, and its role in interior enforcement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement sit at the center of one of the most consequential debates in the United States today.

The questions being asked are:

Who belongs?

Who is Protected?

What kind of country are we choosing to be?

The answers to these questions do not just shape our immigration policies. They also ripple through families, workplaces, schools, and entire communities. Many of which are built and sustained by immigrants. 

For millions of people, immigration enforcement is not an abstract policy question but a daily reality that determines whether parents come home at night, whether children feel safe going to school, and whether trust in public institutions can exist at all.

What is at stake is more than border control or legal process. It is the nation’s commitment to due process, human rights, human dignity, equal protection under the law, and the idea that America’s strength has always come from embracing immigrants who build their lives here, and the immigrants who built this country and made it what it is today.