ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union leader who was arrested while protesting against an immigration raid in Los Angeles last year, in the latest US government case against protesters to fall apart.

David Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, was arrested at a June 2025 demonstration and has been fighting the charges ever since. On Monday, the US attorney’s office in LA filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.

Huerta was initially charged with “conspiracy to impede an officer”, a serious felony, though prosecutors earlier this year downgraded those charges to a misdemeanor of “obstruction, resistance, or opposition of a federal officer”. The misdemeanor is now on track for dismissal.

The justice department in Los Angeles has aggressively prosecuted immigrants and protesters for “impeding” and “assaulting” immigration officers, but many of those cases have collapsed in court, with prosecutors facing a stunning streak of losses when the charges have gone to trial.

“This means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos: the charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice,” Huerta said in a statement on Monday. “There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.”

The attorney general of New Jersey on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the private company operating the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, demanding access for health officials amid allegations of “inhumane and unsanitary conditions”.

Immigrants locked up at the federal detention center in Newark began a hunger and labor strike more than 10 days ago to protest against conditions, while demonstrations built up outside that veered into violent scenes after dark.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed by Jennifer Davenport, the state’s attorney general, asks the state superior court in Newark to order the private operator, the Geo Group, to grant the New Jersey department of health full access to the facility to conduct inspections.

Kim, a senator from New Jersey, had joined the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, at the protest to speak with relatives of some of those detained. He told USA Today that the incident in which he was sprayed by a chemical substance came shortly after he had been inside Delaney Hall to see conditions for himself.

He said he emerged to a “standoff” between protesters and agents from ICE, who he said had deployed an armored vehicle as a barricade, and that he “kind of lined up in front of them” to try to de-escalate the situation.

“ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” Kim said.

“I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on.”

People were “getting tackled and brought to the ground” and ICE “started pushing through with their vehicles” and “started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray”, he said.

“I tried to do whatever I could standing in the middle to keep people safe.”

The hunger and work strike and protests come as the Trump administration continues its controversial, aggressive and increasingly unpopular mass deportation campaign, targeting immigrants nationwide to detain and deport them.

A letter from detainees was published by advocates on Tuesday morning. Two men recently released from Delaney confirmed in interviews with the Guardian their participation in the strike, despite denials by the Trump administration that any such strike was happening.

“We are detained, we are on hunger strike, demanding due process rights and the improvement of conditions,” one of the men said in an interview with the Guardian. “We are not criminals. We are people who enter [the facility] with a clean record. We pay our taxes. [We are] Fathers. Mothers. Spouses of citizens with existing petitions.”

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the re-detention of Mahmoud Khalil as his legal team prepares to petition his case with the US supreme court.

The decision on Tuesday from the third circuit court of appeals gives the 31-year-old activist and US green card holder a temporary reprieve as the broader legal fight over his detention and immigration status continues.

New Jersey senator Andy Kim and Governor Mikie Sherrill were outside the facility Monday morning to speak with detainees’ relatives.

“I’m back at Delaney Hall with @GovSherrillNJ and other members of the NJ delegation to meet with families of detainees and listen to community advocates,” Kim said on X. “We’re working together to make sure they’re heard and to speak out with them.
Delaney Hall must be shut down immediately. ICE cannot be allowed to continue operating in this way.”

A federal judge in New York has banned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting immigrants in or around three federal courthouses in lower Manhattan, where vigorous confrontations have played out since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Under an order issued on Monday by P Kevin Castel, a US district judge, federal agents are no longer allowed to make arrests of immigrants except under exceptional circumstances at the sites where hearings are held before immigration judges.

Castel’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road NY and other groups.

Yassin said a coalition of lawyers was preparing a civil lawsuit alleging violations of the volunteers’ constitutional rights. Supporters chanted, “Trump, escucha, ¡estamos en la lucha!” (in English, “Trump, listen, we’re in the fight!”). Passing cars honked and federal officers watched from behind glass doors.

“We’re gonna continue to fight back, we’re gonna continue to organize, we’re not gonna stop,” said Lainy Yompian, a VC Defensa leader.

The US Senate will not pass the $70bn legislation ahead of a 1 June deadline set by the US president, Republican senators told reporters on Thursday, as lawmakers leave Washington for the Memorial Day recess.

It comes amid backlash from members of Trump’s own party against an attempt to latch funding for his ballroom project on to the immigration bill.

The plan prompted intense anxiety among congressional Republicans, who feared diverting taxpayer dollars toward Trump’s “East Wing modernization project” amid mounting cost of living concerns across the US would risk alienating voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Some Senate Republicans have also expressed concerns about a plan, announced on Monday, to create a secretive $1.776bn fund – which critics have argued is essentially a slush fund – to compensate Trump allies as part of an agreement in which the president and his sons dropped a $10bn long-shot lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service.

By the time “Operation Metro Surge” hit Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, residents were primed to fight back. From houses and stores, in cars and on bicycles, people of every age, race and political stripe dogged ICE wherever it went. The protesters wore inflatable animal costumes, flak jackets and parkas heavy enough to brave weather so cold it froze the ink in reporters’ pens. They withstood teargas, police batons and arrests. And when agents fatally shot two US citizens in January, cellphone videographers were there to record the killings – and disseminate the images around the world on social media.

Public opinion swung decisively against Trump, the then homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and “commander at large” Greg Bovino. The government was forced to retreat.