A 46-year-old Cambodian immigrant held at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia died in a hospital on Friday after being treated for drug withdrawal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
Parady La was arrested by ICE agents outside his Upper Darby home on Tuesday, then transferred to the detention center where he received treatment for severe withdrawal, ICE said.
The next day he was found unresponsive in his cell. Center staff immediately administered CPR and several doses of naloxone, ICE said.
Emergency medical services workers arrived and took over resuscitation efforts. La was transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and admitted in critical condition.
On Wednesday evening, medical evaluations indicated he had limited brain function.
His condition worsened on Thursday and medical staff reported complete renal failure and no brain activity. Family members were notified and visited him at Jefferson, ICE said.
He was pronounced dead by hospital staff early Friday, ICE said.
La was admitted to the United States in 1981 as a refugee, when he would have been a child of about 2. He became a lawful permanent resident a year later, but lost his legal status after committing a series of crimes over two decades, ICE said.
In 1994, when he would have been about 15, he was adjudicated delinquent for simple assault in Delaware County. Later convictions and jail time followed for robbery, criminal conspiracy, and other crimes, ICE said.
A longtime Philadelphia resident who was arrested by ICE at a routine immigration appointment has been deported to Indonesia, his family said.
Rian Andrianzah, 46, walked into a Philadelphia office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Oct. 16, expecting to be fingerprinted and photographed and sent home, but instead was taken into custody and placed in detention.
On Christmas night he was flown to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, leaving behind his wife, also of Indonesia, and two children who are American citizens.
The case angered the city’s Indonesian community ― and placed Andrianzah among a growing number of immigrants who have shown up for routine immigration appointments or check-ins, only to be handcuffed and taken into detention.
Green-card applicants, asylum-seekers, and others who have ongoing legal or visa cases have been unexpectedly detained in what lawyers and advocates say is a Trump administration strategy to boost arrests and deportations.
“It’s frustrating, because we’re going to be able to bring him back in the next few months,” said Philadelphia immigration attorney Christopher Casazza, who represents Andrianzah and his family. “They deported him simply [to gain] a statistic.”
He expects Andrianzah could be able to return to the United States in the summer, via a legal process that could grant status to his wife and, through her, to him.
Andrianzah’s wife, Siti Rahayu, 44, has a strong case to be awarded a T visa, the family’s lawyer said. That visa offers permission to live in the U.S. and a path to permanent residency and citizenship. As her husband, Andrianzah would receive those same benefits under her visa, said Casazza, of the Philadelphia firm Palladino, Isbell & Casazza LLC.
Rahayu said in a text message that she was distressed and not up to discussing her husband’s deportation. Others said his removal hurts the family and the community.
“Rian’s absence means a family without their father and our community without a friend,” said Kintan Silvany, the civic-engagement coordinator at Gapura, which works to empower local Indonesian Americans. “A warm, friendly face will no longer be seen at our annual festivals and cultural events. ICE has taken a beloved member who helped us and the folks around him.”
Andrianzah, meanwhile, like other deportees faces a return to a homeland transformed by time, where family ties have dwindled and emotional and financial hardship looms, his lawyer said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were unable to immediately reply to a request for comment.
A T visa can be available to people who have been victims of human trafficking. It offers a near-blanket waiver on past immigration violations. Authorities say the issuance of T visas offer protection to victims while enhancing the ability of law-enforcement agencies to detect and prosecute human trafficking.
Andrianzah legally entered the United States on a visitor’s visa in February 2000, but did not return to Indonesia before it expired. He was placed in removal proceedings in 2003, and a judge issued a final order of deportation in November 2006. His appeal was denied two years later.
The removal order was never enforced, as had been common for those the government then saw as low-priority immigration violators. Some people with final orders have lived in the U.S. for decades.
Since then Andrianzah worked factory and warehouse jobs, and married. He and his wife made a home in South Philadelphia and became parents of a son, age 8, and a daughter, 15, both U.S. citizens.
Andrianzah and his wife went to USCIS that October day as part of her T-visa application. In an interview with The Inquirer, Rahayu said she was sent to the U.S. in 2001 by relatives who saw her as a means to pay off a debt, delivering her to an underground organization that puts people in low-paying jobs, then keeps them working indefinitely. Her work would help pay the debt owed by her relatives.
Rahayu said that on Oct. 16, she completed her own biometrics appointment, then grew concerned when her husband did not appear. She soon learned he had been arrested.
Some immigrants are required to appear every couple of weeks, some once a month, others once a year. The appointments help immigration officials keep track of people who in the past have been low priorities for deportation.
Biometrics appointments are usually brief sessions at which the government captures fingerprints, a passport-style photo, and a signature. The immigrant may also be asked to provide information like height and weight.
Despite the fresh risk of being arrested on the spot, immigrants have little option except to show up. Many types of immigration applications require in-person appearances. And failure to appear for a required ICE appointment can by itself result in an order for removal.
Victor Acurio Suarez is 52 but childlike, born with developmental disabilities that have left him unable to live on his own.
He likes to talk to people, said his brother, who takes care of him. And on Sept. 22, in a Lowe’s parking lot near the brothers’ home in Seaford, Del., he tried to flag down an ICE agent, apparently thinking the officer could help him find work.
Instead, Acurio Suarez, originally from Ecuador, was arrested for being in the country without permission and sent to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in central Pennsylvania.
Acurio Suarez doesn’t realize he’s in custody, his brother, Lenin Acurio Suarez, said in an interview. He thinks he’s on vacation, provided with three free meals a day and allowed to buy snacks and kick a soccer ball.
But in phone calls from Moshannon, he says that after three months, he’s grown tired of vacation and wants to come home.
In fact, Acurio Suarez faces deportation to Ecuador ― with a key Immigration Court hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday now postponed. When that hearing takes place, he could be granted asylum and allowed to stay in the U.S., safe from the gang violence he fled, or ordered returned to his homeland.
His case, said his attorney, Kaley Miller-Schaeffer, is a prime example of how Trump-administration policy shifts have encouraged ICE to detain even the most vulnerable and to treat potential discretionary relief as irrelevant in a bid to boost deportations.
Her Sept. 30 request to have Acurio Suarez released to the care of his brother while his immigration case goes forward was denied.
Asked about Acurio Suarez’s arrest and detention, ICE said in a statement that they screen and look out for the health of all detainees.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly committed to the health, safety, and welfare of all detainees in custody. ICE’s National Detention Standards and other ICE policies require all contracted facilities to provide comprehensive medical and mental health screenings from the moment an alien arrives at a facility and throughout their entire time in custody.”
At an earlier court hearing, Miller-Schaeffer said, she watched as Acurio Suarez struggled to answer basic questions. He told the judge he didn’t know if he had an attorney or know what an attorney does.
His ability to testify was so limited, she said, that the judge allowed his brother to take the stand to explain his sibling’s experience and situation.
Acurio Suarez can recall big events in his life, she said. He remembers being beaten by gangs who seized on his vulnerability, but he couldn’t tell you exactly when that occurred.
Today, as President Donald Trump pursues an unprecedented mass-deportation campaign, more migrants including Acurio Suarez have been made subject to mandatory detention. That means they’re held in custody during their deportation proceedings, unable to seek release on bond.
Victor Acurio Suarez’s empty room at his home in Seaford, Del.
That includes immigrants whose only offense was crossing the border without approval, who in the past might have been issued a notice to appear in court and allowed to live in the community while their cases go forward.
The administration says it is arresting the “worst of the worst,” dangerous immigrants who have committed serious and sometimes violent offenses. But data show 74% of those in detention have no criminal convictions.
That includes Acurio Suarez, who worked at odd jobs in Ecuador before coming to this country in 2021.
According to an ICE report, at 9:14 a.m. on Sept. 22, an ICE team was conducting operations in Seaford, a southern Delaware city of 9,000 where 13% of the population is foreign-born.
The ICE officer wrote that he was looking for a place to park in the Lowe’s lot when a man in paint-stained clothing, Acurio Suarez, approached him. Acurio Suarez waved his hand, signaling the officer to come to him, according to the ICE account.
The officer kept going, then stopped his car and watched Acurio Suarez from another lot. Acurio Suarez tried to hail other cars, and could be seen talking to people who were loading lumber onto a trailer in the parking lot, he said.
It looked like Acurio Suarez was trying to find daily work, which is why he tried to get the ICE officer to stop his vehicle, the report said.
It’s common for undocumented immigrants seeking a day’s pay to wait in the parking lots of big home-improvement stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot, hoping to connect with building contractors who need laborers.
Lenin Acurio Suarez said his brother cannot hold a full-time job, able only to handle small tasks, provided someone is beside him giving directions.
A second ICE officer arrived, and both parked their cars near where Acurio Suarez had left his lunch box unattended. Acurio Suarez walked back toward the officers, and one of the agents approached and questioned him.
Acurio Suarez said he had no identification or immigration documents and was placed in handcuffs. He told the officer he was in good health, the report says.
Lenin Acurio Suarez holds a photograph of his brother, Victor, at his home in Seaford, Del., on Wednesday. Victor was arrested by ICE on Sept. 22.
Records show that four years ago, on Aug. 2, 2021, he and his brother were stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol as they tried to enter the country near Eagle Pass, Texas, southwest of San Antonio.
The brothers were processed separately by immigration authorities. Lenin Acurio Suarez was issued a notice to appear in court and released. His immigration case was later dismissed.
Victor Acurio Suarez was ordered deported and subsequently returned to Ecuador on Sept. 24. But three days later, for reasons that are unclear, the deportation order was found to have been issued incorrectly, and Acurio Suarez was brought back by authorities to the U.S.
In October 2021, he was granted temporary permission to stay in the country. He had filed his asylum case by the time that permission expired a year later.
The group projects that intentional homicides in Ecuador could reach 9,100 in 2025, a 40% increase over the previous year.
That’s a rate of nearly 50 per 100,000 inhabitants, which would continue to give Ecuador the highest homicide rate in Latin America, the organization said. In the U.S. the figure is about five per 100,000 people.
While ICE agents were arresting Acurio Suarez, Lenin was frantically searching the neighborhood, initially not having realized that his brother had left their home. Lenin called local police for help, and officers checked the Lowe’s security cameras. The video showed Victor being taken into custody.
In an interview, Lenin, 49, explained that he has always taken care of his younger brother, since their mother left when they were teenagers in Ecuador.
In this country, Lenin has a job in housing construction that enables him to provide for himself and his brother and to live with others in a rented house. He worries what will happen to Victor if he’s sent back to Ecuador, where there’s no one to care for him.
“Thanks to God I’ve been able to pay rent and food for me and my brother,” Lenin said. “I am grateful for this country, to be in this country. But I want my brother to have a fair life, with me, out of detention. He won’t be able to survive by himself in Ecuador.”
In the last six months, President Donald Trump has sent troops, immigration agents, or both to Democratic cities from coast to coast. The list includes Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Memphis, Portland, Ore., Charlotte, N.C., New Orleans, and Minneapolis.
But not Philadelphia.
The city that seemed an obvious early target, condemned by Trump as the place where “bad things happen,” has somehow escaped his wrath. At least so far.
That has sparked speculation from City Hall to Washington over why the president would ignore the staunchly Democratic city with which he has famously feuded. Here we offer some insight into whether that’s likely to change.
Why has Philadelphia been spared when smaller, less prominent cities have not?
Nobody knows. Or at least nobody knows for sure. But lots of people in government and immigration circles have ideas.
There’s the weather theory, that it’s hard for immigration agents who depend on cars to make arrests in cities that get winter snow and ice. Except, of course, the administration just launched Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis, which gets 54 inches of snow a year.
Then there’s the swing-state theory, that Trump is staying out of Philadelphia because Pennsylvania ranks among the handful of states that can tip presidential elections. But that doesn’t explain Trump’ssurge into North Carolina, where he sent immigration forces last month.
While the Tar Heel State voted for Trump three times, elections there can be decided by fewer than 3 percentage points.
U.S. Rep. BrendanBoyle, a Democrat whose North and Northeast Philadelphia district includes many immigrants, suggested a blue-state theory, that Trump has mostly targeted cities in states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. But Boyle acknowledged that North Carolina and Tennessee are exceptions.
“It could just be that they’re working their way down the list,” Boyle said.
Has Mayor Cherelle L. Parker had a hand in keeping troops out of Philadelphia?
It depends on whom you talk to.
For months she has passed up opportunities to publicly criticize the president, turning aside questions about his intentions by saying she is focused on the needs of Philadelphia. Some believe her more passive approach has kept the city out of the White House crosshairs.
People close to the mayor point out that big-city mayors who land on the president’s bad side have faced big consequences. For instance, in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass frequently clashed with Trump ― and faced a National Guard deployment.
Some point out that Parker has good relationships with Republicans who are friendly with the president, including U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, who has praised the mayor on multiple occasions.
On the other hand, some in the city’s political class ― especially those already skeptical of Parker ― say the suggestion that she has shielded the city gives her too much credit.
One strategist posited that the lack of overt federal action has more to do with Trump’s trying to protect a razor-thin Republican majority in the House, and that targeting Philadelphia could anger voters in the Bucks County and Lehigh Valley districts where Republicans hold seats.
What does Trump say about his plans for Philadelphia?
Trump suggested there should be a “permanent pause” on immigration from “hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” declared Washington the safest it has been in decades, and praised ICE as “incredible.”
“I love Philadelphia,” Trump declared. “It’s gotten a little rougher, but we will take it.”
That was a marked change from a decade ago, when Trump called Jim Kenney a “terrible” mayor, and Kenney called him a “nincompoop.”
Kenney fought Trump in court and won in 2018, when a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the president could not end federal grants based on how the city treats immigrants. After the ruling, the Irish mayor was captured on video dancing a jig and calling out “Sanctuary City!”
More recently, in May, Philadelphia landed on Trump’s list of more than 500 sanctuary jurisdictions that he planned to target for funding cuts. That was no surprise. Nor was it surprising that in August, when the administration zapped hundreds of places off that list, Philadelphia was among the 18 cities that remained.
“I don’t know why they’re not here yet,” said Peter Pedemonti, codirector of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia. But the larger point is that “ICE is in neighborhoods every day, they are taking away people every day,” and he urged those who support immigrants to prepare.
“Now is the time to get involved with organizations that are organizing around this,” Pedemonti said. “There are neighbors who need us.”
Has Gov. Josh Shapiro helped dissuade federal action in Philadelphia?
It’s hard to say. Shapiro has challenged Trump in court multiple times, including when he was the state attorney general during Trump’s first term.
As governor,Shapiro sued the administration over its move to freeze billions in federal funds for public health programs, infrastructure projects, and farm and food bank contracts. He also joined a multistate suit challenging an executive order that restricted gender-affirming care for minors.
On immigration, however, Shapiro has been careful not to directly engage in the sanctuary city debate, saying his job is to provide opportunity for all Pennsylvanians. But he has been critical of Trump’s enforcement tactics, calling them fear-inducing and detrimental to the state’s economy and safety.
Still, Trump has not lashed out at Shapiro, a popular swing-state governor. At his rally in Mount Pocono last week, in which he criticized several Democrats, Trump didn’t mention Shapiro ― or the Republican in attendance who is running against the governor in 2026, Stacy Garrity.
Why is the president sending troops to American cities in the first place? Isn’t that unusual?
Highly unusual ― and fought in court by the leaders of many of the cities that have been targeted. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles, saying it was “profoundly un-American” to suggest that peaceful protesters “constitute a risk justifying the federalization of military forces.”
Trump says the National Guard is needed to end violence, to help support deportations, and to fight crime in Democratic-run cities. Last week he declared that Democrats were “destroying” Charlotte, after a Honduran man who had twice been deportedallegedly stabbed a person on a commuter train.
Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were hospitalized in critical condition ― one subsequently died ― after being shot by a gunman in Washington the day before Thanksgiving.
That the attack was allegedly carried out by an Afghan man who had been granted asylum helped spark a wave of immigration policy changes, all in the name of greater security. For some immigrants who are attempting to legally stay in the country, that has resulted in the cancellation of citizenship ceremonies and the freezing of asylum processes.
So what happens next?
It’s hard to say. Immigration enforcement will surely continue to toughen.
But it’s difficult to predict when or whether troops might land on Market Street.
“I’ve heard so many different theories,” said Jay Bergen, the pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church, who has helped lead demonstrations against courthouse arrests. “It’s probably all of them ― a little bit of the way Shapiro has positioned himself, the way the mayor has positioned herself, a little bit the electoral map of Pennsylvania, a little bit, more than a little bit, Trump’s own personality.”
That Philadelphia has been ignored to date doesn’t mean it won’t be in Trump’s sights tomorrow, Bergen said.
“This administration thrives on being unpredictable, and on sowing as much exhaustion and pain as possible,” Bergen said. “We don’t do ourselves a favor by getting panicked in advance, but we also need to be ready.”
Immigration activists carried a worn wooden lectern to the Criminal Justice Center on Thursday, demanding that Sheriff Rochelle Bilal step up and explain why she allows ICE agents in the courthouse.
She didn’t appear, and after a few minutes lead protest speaker Aniqa Raihan stepped away from the microphone, highlighting the sheriff’s absence by leaving the podium empty, save for the recorded chirps of crickets.
The quiet didn’t last.
As Raihan resumed speaking, she was quickly interrupted by counterdemonstrators, supporters of the sheriff who said No ICE Philly had unfairly maligned her. Her supporters said the sheriff could bar ICE from the courthouse only upon a judge’s order ― initiating a testy debate.
“It’s the judges that have to actually give the order,” said Andy Pierre, CEO of Fox & Lion Communication, who said he helped run the sheriff’s campaign for office. ”Her coming down here, and taking time away from managing her office, to come down here for this show …”
Other Bilal backers, at least one wearing a campaign shirt, also accused the immigration advocates of targeting the wrong person, holding up signs that said, “Hands off Sheriff Bilal!”
Aniqa Raihan, an organizers with No ICE Philly, speaks at a protest Thursday at the Criminal Justice Center.
The No ICE Philly demonstrators responded that the sheriff is in charge of courthouse security. And that she does not report to Philadelphia judges.
No ICE Philly has castigated Bilal, saying that by not barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from the property — as judges and lawmakers in some other jurisdictions have done — she has helped enable the arrest of at least 90 immigrants who were trailed from the courthouse and arrested on the sidewalk outside.
Three more people were arrested this week, activists said.
“Sheriff Bilal, we are watching,” Raihan said.
Conflicting views at Philly courthouse
In response to a request for comment ahead of the protest, the sheriff’s office said in a statement that Bilal had already made her position clear:
“The Sheriff’s Office does not cooperate with ICE, does not assist in ICE operations, and does not share information with ICE. That policy has not changed and will not change.”
The statement reiterated that deputies are prohibited from assisting ICE in courthouse arrests. The department’s priority is the safety of immigrants, residents, observers, and everyone entering the court system, it said.
Meanwhile, the statement said, the office would continue to protect the public, enforce its policies, and ensure that “no one is targeted or harmed because of their immigration status.”
Protesters say that is exactly what has been happening, that the sheriff has allowed ICE to turn the Criminal Justice Center into “a hunting ground.”
The issue has spurred contention between activists and lawyers who say the courthouse must be a place to seek and render justice ― not to target immigrants ― and federal authorities who insist that making arrests there is legal, safe, and logical.
No ICE Philly says agents have been allowed to essentially hang out at the Center City courthouse, waiting in the lobby or scouring the hallways, then making arrests outside, a pattern they say has been repeated dozens of times since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Asked for comment, an ICE spokesperson in Philadelphia said: “ICE respects the rights of individuals to peacefully protest.”
Contention over courthouses
Activists noted that many people who go to the courthouse are not criminal defendants ― they are witnesses, crime victims, family members, and others who are already in diversionary programs.
Other jurisdictions have acted to bar or restrict ICE activity at their courthouses.
In Connecticut last month, state lawmakers passed a bill to bar most civil immigration arrests at courthouses. In Chicago, the top Cook County judge barred ICE from arresting people at courthouses. And in New York, a federal judge dismissed a Trump administration challenge to a law that barred the immigration arrests of people going into and out of courthouses.
Nearly 11 months into Trump‘s second presidency, courthouses have become disputed territory as his administration pursues ever-more-aggressive arrest and deportation policies.
Under President Joe Biden, ICE agents were allowed to take action at or near a courthouse only if the situation involved a threat to national security, an imminent risk of death or violence, the pursuit of someone who threatened the public safety, or a risk of destruction of evidence.
The only conditions were that agents must have credible information that their target would be present and that the local jurisdiction had not passed laws barring such enforcement.
‘We want to keep our city’
On Thursday, about 60 demonstrators gathered outside the Center City courthouse, where they said Bilal must do more to protect immigrants.
The demand comes as ICE has dramatically expanded its presence and visibility in the Philadelphia region and across the United States. More than 65,000 immigrants are now being held in federal detention, up dramatically since Trump took office.
“We want to keep our city, not a city of fear, but a city of love,” said Elena Emelchin Brunner, immigrant rights organizer with Asian Americans United.
Imam Salaam Muhsin, a community leader, stepped up to speak as No ICE Philly opened the lectern to all. He said the climate around ICE had become “terrorizing” and must be addressed.
“What we’re doing right here, we’re doing it in a kind of ugly way,” he said. “And I say ugly because we haven’t come together. We still are stigmatizing one person, and that’s the sheriff. That’s unfair to her.”
The number of immigrants confined in federal detention facilities has surged past 65,000, perhaps the highest figure ever and a two-thirds increase since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The 65,135 in custody across the nation represents a shattering of the 60,000 threshold, which was last passed briefly in August before dropping back down. The new figure is up from 39,238 when Trump was inaugurated, as his administration quickly undertook an unprecedented campaign to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants.
“It’s quite stunning,” said Jonah Eaton, a Philadelphia immigration attorney who teaches about detention at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. “They are dead serious about moving as many people out of the country as possible, and keeping them detained while they do it.”
The data, current as of Nov. 16, come from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an information-and-research organization that obtains information from ICE and other federal agencies.
An ICE spokesperson said the agency could not comment on statistics compiled by third parties.
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The Trump administration says it is arresting the “worst of the worst,” criminal immigrants who have committed serious and sometimes violent offenses. But the new data show ― as they consistently have ― that 74% of those in detention have no criminal convictions.
“The question is ‘What’s going to be the ceiling for this?’ as the administration has designs to expand the capacity to detain individuals as arrests increase,” said Cris Ramon, an independent immigration consultant in Washington. “If the goal is to remove as many people as possible, they’re going to be leaning on the detention centers to be, first and foremost, a staging ground.”
Ramon said he was not surprised by the high detention numbers, given the Trump administration’s determination to carry out large-scale operations in cities like Charlotte, N.C., and Chicago.
The Moshannon Valley Processing Center outside Philipsburg, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania that is privately operated by the GEO Group under contract with ICE. It is the largest ICE detention center in the Northeast United States.
Today 81% of people in detention were arrested by ICE, up from 38% when Trump took office. The president has demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement make more arrests more quickly, and won new funding to encourage that.
The agency generally operates in the interior United States.
New Jersey has two detention facilities, in Newark and Elizabeth, and might be getting a third, in South Jersey. The administration plans to hold detainees at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, one of two military sites that have been designated for that purpose. The other is Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
Many of those in custody are subject to “mandatory detention,” meaning they are not allowed to seek release on bond. In the summer, the administration announced a policy change that prevented immigration judges from granting bond to anyone in detention who had entered the United States without documentation.
The result, according to the National Immigration Law Center, is that the Trump administration has ensured that migrants have almost no way out of detention “other than death or deportation.”
ICE is arresting, detaining, and refusing to release far more people than before, the law center said, including many who rarely would have been held in the past.
Immigration detention is civil in nature, to hold people as they progress through their court cases or await deportation. It is not supposed to be a punishment.
When Joe Biden assumed the presidency in 2021, there were 14,195 people in immigration detention. That figure more than doubled during his term and eventually topped 39,000.
“Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda has reached a previously unimaginable scope and scale,” Carly Pérez Fernández, communications director at Detention Watch Network in Washington, said in a statement.
She called the new detention figure “a grim reminder” of a larger plan that is “targeting people based on where they work and what they look like, destabilizing communities, separating families, and putting people’s lives at risk.”
ICE holds detainees across the country, in ICE facilities, in federal prisons, in privately owned lockups, and in state and local jails. As detentions have surged, so has the need for places to house people.
As of this summer, ICE detained people in all 50 states as well as in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the Vera Institute of Justice in New York.
Texas had the most facilities with 69, and Florida was second with 40, the institute said.
Activists rallied outside the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center on Thursday to press their assertion that ICE has been allowed to turn the courthouse into “a hunting ground” for immigrants.
The noon demonstration crystalized months of contention between activists and lawyers who say the courthouse must be a place to seek and render justice ― not to target immigrants ― and federal authorities who insist that making arrests there is legal, safe, and sane.
No ICE Philly, the rally organizer, says agents have been enabled to essentially hang out at the Center City courthouse, waiting in the lobby or scouring the hallways, then making arrests on the sidewalks outside, a pattern they say has been repeated dozens of times since President Donald Trump took office in January.
“ICE is kidnapping immigrants who are obeying the law and coming to court,” said Ashen Harper, a college student who helped lead the demonstration, which targeted Sheriff Rochelle Bilal. “She is capitulating and cooperating with ICE.”
Many people who go to the courthouse, the group noted, are not criminal defendants ― they are witnesses, crime victims, family members, people dealing with alleged offenses like shoplifting or trespassing, and others who are already in diversionary programs.
Organizers said ICE has arrested about 90 people outside the courthouse since January, a dramatic increase over the previous year. And they pledged to return on Dec. 4 ― lugging a podium for Bilal so that, organizers said, she can explain changes she intends to make, including barring ICE.
The sheriff did not immediately reply to a request for comment Thursday.
Members of No ICE Philly rally outside the Criminal Justice Center on Thursday, calling on the sheriff to cut off Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to the building.
“We want to put the sheriff on notice that we’re watching,” said Aniqa Raihan, a No ICE Philly organizer. “We want to raise awareness of the fact … that ICE is using the courthouse as a hunting ground.”
As word of plans for the demonstration spread, Bilal issued a statement aimed at “addressing public concerns” around ICE activity.
“Let me be very clear: the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office does not partner with ICE,” the sheriff said. “Our deputies do not assist ICE, share information, or participate in immigration enforcement.”
Deputies verify the credentials of ICE agents entering the courthouse ― and those agents are not permitted to make arrests in courtrooms or anywhere else inside, she said.
Raihan and other advocates say that is no protection. ICE agents linger in the lobby, they said, then follow their target outside and quickly make the arrest.
A police department spokesperson said at the time that the Spanish-speaking officer offered to walk with the man to help translate, but did not detain him. The Defender Association of Philadelphia and others questioned how the incident squared with the city’s sanctuary policies.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Philadelphia did not reply to a request for comment.
On Thursday, about 40 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse, chanting and singing under the watchful eye of city police officers and sheriff’s deputies. No ICE agents were visible. Protesters carried signs to indicate that they, too, were watching, raising colorful cardboard eyeballs, eyeglasses, and magnifiers.
Lenore Ramos, the community defense organizer with the Juntos advocacy group, called on the sheriff and city government officials to protect immigrants at the courthouse. Proclaiming Philadelphia a welcoming city, she said, is not just a slogan ― it’s a promise, one that local government must fulfill.
“The city is not standing behind our immigrant communities,” Ramos said. “It is walking all over them.”
In an interview earlier this week, Whitney Viets, an immigration counsel at the Defender Association, said ICE agents are at the courthouse almost every day, and arrests occur there almost daily.
The government does not publicly release data detailing where most immigration arrests occur, but Viets estimated that dozens of arrests have taken place at the courthouse since the start of the year. Masked plainclothes agents are seen outside the building, in the lobby, in courtrooms, and in hallways, she said.
“Agents are effectively doing enforcement in the courthouse, through identification,” she said.
She explained that agents may identify a person they are seeking in or near a courtroom, then either follow them outside or alert other agents who are already waiting on the sidewalk.
It is unclear where ICE is obtaining information on who will be at the courthouse on any particular day, although some details about ongoing criminal cases are available in public records.One result of ICE enforcement, she said, is people are afraid to come to court.
“This is about whether our justice system operates effectively,” Viets said. “The actions of ICE have gotten brazen. … What we need at this time is public engagement against this activity.”
No ICE Philly decried “kidnappings” by the agency and demanded the sheriff “protect everyone inside and outside the courthouse,” including “immigrants targeted by ICE as well as citizens observing and documenting ICE arrests.”
The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office is in charge of courthouse security. However, Bilal said in her statement, her office has no authority to intervene in lawful activities that are conducted off the property.
“Inside the courthouse, everyone’s rights and safety are protected equally under the law,” she said. “We are law enforcement professionals who follow the law.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal stands to be recognized at City Hall in March.
In Philadelphia and places around the country, courthouses have become disputed locales as the Trump administration pursues ever-more-aggressive arrest and deportation policies.
Under President Joe Biden, limits were set on what ICE could do at courthouses. Agents were permitted to take action at or near a courthouse only if it involved a threat to national security, an imminent risk of death or violence, the pursuit of someone who threatened the public safety, or a risk of destruction of evidence.
Even then, advocacy groups accused ICE of violating the policy by arresting people who were only short distances from courthouses.
The Biden restrictions on ICE vanished the day after Trump took office.
The new guidance said agents could conduct enforcement actions in or near courthouses ― period. The only conditions were that agents must have credible information that their target would be present at a specific location and that the local jurisdiction had not passed laws barring such enforcement.
The guidance said that, to the extent practicable, ICE action should take place in nonpublic areas of the courthouse and be done in collaboration with court security staff. Officers should generally avoid making arrests in or near family or small-claims courts.
The Department of Homeland Security said that the Biden administration had “thwarted law enforcement” from doing its job, that arresting immigrants in courthouses is safer for agents and the public because those being sought have passed through metal detectors and security checkpoints.
“The ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said earlier this year. “It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be.”
Philadelphia city officials have said repeatedly that they do not cooperate with ICE, and that the sanctuary city policies created under former Mayor Jim Kenney remain in place under Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.
Protesters Elias Siegelman, right, with No Ice Philly, who also works with the groups Indivisible, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Progressive Victory, outside the ICE office, in Philadelphia on Oct. 30.
Nationally, 10 months into the Trump administration, some Democratic jurisdictions are acting to tighten ICE access at courthouses.
In Connecticut this month, state lawmakers passed a bill to bar most civil immigration arrests at courthouses, unless federal authorities have obtained a signed judicial warrant in advance.
The Senate bill, already approved by the House, also bans law enforcement officers from wearing face coverings in court, Connecticut Public Radio reported. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign the measure.
Last month in Chicago, which has faced weeks of controversial immigration enforcement, the top Cook County judge barred ICE from arresting people at courthouses. That came as federal agents stationed themselves outside courthouses, drawing crowds of protesters, CBS News reported.
On Monday, a federal judge dismissed a Trump administration challenge to a New York law that barred the immigration arrests of people going into and out of courthouses. New York passed the Protect Our Courts Act in 2020, during Trump’s first term, a law the administration said had imposed unconstitutional restrictions on enforcement, the Hill reported.
The Thursday rally marked the third recent protest by No ICE Philly, which seeks to stop agency activity in the city. The organization’s Halloween Eve demonstration outside the ICE office erupted into physical confrontations with police, with several people pushed to the ground and four arrested.
The arrests came after some demonstrators attempted to stop ICE vehicles from leaving the facility at Eighth and Cherry Streets.
No ICE Philly organizers said Thursday that they will continue to scrutinize ICE activity at the courthouse.
“There are people watching. We have eyes on this,” Raihan said, adding that ICE is “allowed to hang in the lobby, sometimes in the courtrooms.”
“Somehow they seem to know when somebody vulnerable is in the courthouse. … We’re concerned with how they’re finding out that information.”
It doesn’t look like the Trump administration will begin holding undocumented immigrants at a South Jersey military base anytime soon.
Democratic elected officials said Wednesday that they received a letter from the administration saying there is currently no approved construction plan, nor a timeline, for confining people at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Estimates are that the base, which spans parts of Burlington and Ocean Counties, could hold 1,000 to 3,000 detainees. Specifics surrounding the when, where, and how of that undertaking remain unknown.
New Jersey U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross and Herb Conaway, Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, announced that they received a response earlier this week from the Department of Homeland Security after requesting more information about the administration’s plans.
“The Trump Administration’s ongoing disregard for due process and humane treatment of undocumented immigrants has required us to press repeatedly for answers and fulfill our congressional oversight responsibilities,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “While we acknowledge that the Department of Homeland Security has finally responded to our questions, we will continue to monitor for any further developments.”
Their priority, the lawmakers said, is to uphold standards of human rights to ensure that plans to detain immigrants do not interfere with military readiness.
The administration’s response said the government’s need for more detention space “reflects the Trump administration’s commitment to restoring the rule of law and ending the catch-and-release policies of prior years that jeopardized American communities.”
Trump administration officials earlier named the base as one of two sites in the country now certified to assist in the president’s plan to remove millions of immigrants. The other is Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
On Oct. 16, Rian Andrianzah walked into a Philadelphia office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for what he thought was a routine biometrics appointment. He expected to be fingerprinted and photographed and sent on his way.
Instead, while his wife waited in an outer room, he was arrested by ICE ― and now faces deportation in a case that has angered the city’s Indonesian community.
Andrianzah, 46, is among a growing number of immigrants whose families say they showed up for in-person appointments or check-ins, only to be suddenly handcuffed and spirited into detention.
Green-card applicants, asylum-seekers, and others who have ongoing legal or visa cases have been unexpectedly taken, part of a Trump administration strategy, lawyers and advocates say, to boost the number of immigration arrests and to deport anyone who can possibly be deported.
“ICE was waiting for him,” said Philadelphia immigration attorney Christopher Casazza, who represents Andrianzah and his family. “In 15 years, I have never once seen somebody arrested at their biometrics appointment ― except in the past few months.”
Andrianzah legally entered the United States on a visitor’s visa in February 2000, but did not return to Indonesia. He was placed in removal proceedings in 2003, and a judge issued a final order of deportation in November 2006. His appeal was denied two years later.
The removal order was never enforced, as had been common for what the government thensaw as low-priority immigration violators. Some people with final orders have lived in the U.S. for decades.
In the ensuing years, Andrianzah worked factory and warehouse jobs ― and married Siti Rahayu, 44, also of Indonesia. They made a home in South Philadelphia, parents to two U.S.-citizen children, a son, age 8, and a daughter, 15.
Andrianzah and his wife went to USCIS that day as part of her application for a T visa, available to people who have been victims of human trafficking. In an interview with The Inquirer,Rahayu said she was sent to the U.S. in 2001 by relatives who saw her as a means to pay off a debt, delivering her to an underground organization that puts people in low-paying jobs, then keeps them working indefinitely.
Siti Rahayu of Philadelphia, here on Thursday, November 6, 2025. Her husband Rian Andrianzah walked into United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office for a routine visit but he was sent to Moshannon detention center to await deportation.
Casazza, of the Philadelphia firm Palladino, Isbell & Casazza LLC, said Rahayu has a strong case for a T visa, which offers permission to live in the U.S. and a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
As her husband, Andrianzah would receive those same benefits under her visa.
That’s why, Casazza said, it makes no sense for ICE to confine and deport him. Once his wife’s visa was approved, Andrianzah would be able to legally live in the United States, the attorney said.
Asked about Andrianzah’s arrest and the couple’s situation, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson in Philadelphia said in a statement: “Due to privacy issues, we are not authorized to discuss this case.”
Andrianzah is being held at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Clearfield County, Pa.
As President Donald Trump presses his deportation agenda, what were routine meetings with federal authorities have now become risky for immigrants. Advocates say many of those arrested were following the rules and doing what the government asked:
On May 27, the wife of a Marine Corps veteran was detained in Louisiana after meeting with USCIS about her green-card application, CBS News reported. Paola Clouatre, 25, said she came to the U.S. as a child with her mother, but was abandoned as a teenager and unaware that the government had ordered them deported. She spent about eight weeks in custody before being fitted with an ankle monitor and released.
On June 3, federal agents in New York City arrested at least 16 immigrants who showed up for check-ins, after a private contractor working with ICE summoned them to urgent appointments, The City, a news organization, reported.
On Oct. 22, a 21-year-old California college student was arrested by ICE at an appointment at a USCIS office in San Francisco, Newsweek reported. Government officials said Esteban Danilo Quiroga-Chaparro, a Colombian national and green-card applicant, had missed mandatory meetings, though his husband said that was untrue.
On Oct. 23, a Venezuelan couple pursuing asylum were arrested during a check-in at the ICE office in downtown Milwaukee, Urban Milwaukee reported. Diego Ugarte-Arenas and Dailin Pacheco-Acosta sought protection after fleeing their homeland in 2021. An ICE spokesperson told the news agency that “all aliens who remain in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal.”
“There’s a lot of risks right now,” said Ana Ferreira, who serves on the executive board of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Some clients went intoimmigrationappointments knowing there was a possibility they could be detained, she said. Others were shocked to be taken.
“None of this would have happened years ago,” Ferreira said. “It’s a completely different landscape.”
Siti Rahayu of Philadelphia holds a photograph of her husband, Rian Andrianzah. He walked into a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office for what he thought would be a routine visit but was sent to the Moshannon detention center to await deportation. Photograph taken on Thursday, November 6, 2025.
Rahayu said that on Oct. 16, she completed her own biometrics appointment, then grew concerned when her husband did not appear. She asked the staff what was happening.
“They [said they] don’t know anything, and they say this is new for them,” Rahayu said.
Finally someone told her: He’s gone. Rahayu fears for her husband’s health in custody because he suffers from diabetes, which impairs his vision.
The local Indonesian American community reacted immediately, supported by Asian Americans United, the advocacy group. An estimated 2,000 Indonesians live in Philadelphia, the 10th-largest community in the nation.
Andrianzah said through his wife that he wished to thank everyone who has tried to help him and his family, that he is grateful for their care and concern. Supporters have raised about $13,000.
Each year thousands of people physically report to ICE or related immigration agencies for mandatory check-ins.
Some immigrants are required to appear every couple of weeks, some once a month, others once a year. The appointments help immigration officials keep track of people who in the past have been low priorities for deportation, allowed to live freely as they pursue legal efforts to stay in the United States.
Biometrics appointments are usually brief sessions, perhaps half an hour, at which the government captures fingerprints, a passport-style photo, and a signature. The immigrant may also be asked to provide information like height and weight.
Despite the fresh risk of being arrested on the spot, immigrants have little option except to show up. Many types of immigration applications require in-person appearances. And failure to appear for a required ICE appointment can by itself result in an order for removal.
“They’re trying to grab everybody, wherever they can,” and that included Andrianzah, Casazza said. “ICE is going to do their best to deport him.”
Bucks County voters on Tuesday did what protest and legal action could not, halting a controversial sheriff’s office alliance with ICE by electing a Democrat who has pledged to end the partnership.
Sheriff-elect Danny Ceisler said Wednesday that he will issue a moratorium barring deputies’ cooperation with ICE on his first day in office. From there, he said, he will figure out how to disentangle the sheriff’s office from the agreement signed by his predecessor.
Ceisler beat incumbent Republican Fred Harran by more than 10% of the vote in unofficial returns.
Ceisler and a cadre of immigration activists ― who saw an ACLU-led lawsuit falter ― had portrayed the election as the last chance to kill the affiliation, after a Bucks judge ruled last month that it had been legally implemented and could proceed.
Army veteran Danny Ceisler won the hotly contested Bucks County sheriff race Tuesday night.
Harran, who led the Bensalem Police Department before being elected sheriff four years ago, said Wednesday that Ceisler will “have to answer for a person who becomes victimized by an individual that should have been deported. And he’ll have to sleep with that, and it’ll be on his head, not mine.“
His said his plans around the program had been misrepresented.
“Everyone knows my intentions. It was never making car stops on people who were dark-colored. My career speaks for itself in terms of my partnerships with the community.”
He had staunchly defended his decision to assist ICE, insisting it would make residents safer and even potentially bring new funding and police equipment to the county.
Ceisler called immigration the single biggest issue in this election.
“My goal was to provide an alternative which was a no-nonsense, reasonable approach to public safety,” Ceisler said Wednesday, noting that it was now “my responsibility to deliver on that.”
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment.
The partnership, which recently became active after months of planning, provoked backlash, including the lawsuit, public demonstrations outside the courthouse, and a repudiation by the Democratic-led Bucks County Board of Commissioners.
Nationally, only a few police agencies that signed on with ICE have dropped out of those agreements.
Ceisler’s victory was part of a Democratic sweep of county positions in a critical swing county that narrowly voted to elect President Donald Trump last year.
“I am walking on air,” said Laura Rose, a leader of Bucks County Indivisible, which supports immigrants and progressive causes. “Bucks County voters soundly rejected Sheriff Harran and his plan to turn county deputies into de facto ICE agents.”
In the spring, Harran and ICE officials signed what is called a 287(g) agreement, named for a section of a 1996 immigration law. It enables local police to undergo ICE training, then assist the agency in identifying, arresting, and deporting immigrants.
“Ceisler’s victory proves what we’ve always known ― 287(g) agreements don’t make us safer, they divide our community,” said Diana Robinson, co-executive director of Make the Road Pennsylvania, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The agreement with ICE “put Bucks County at risk,” and the election showed that “voters reject fear-based policies,” she said Wednesday.
Robinson and other opponents insist that turning local officers into immigration agents breaks community trust with the police and puts municipal taxpayers at risk of paying big legal settlements. ICE officials, however, say the program helps protect American communities, a force-multiplier that adds important staff strength to an agency workforce that numbers about 20,000 nationwide.
The number of participating police agencies has soared under Trump, with ICE having signed 1,135 agreements in 40 states as of Wednesday. Seven states, including New Jersey and Delaware, bar the agreements by law or policy.
The number of new agreements increases almost every day, and Trump has pushed hard for greater local involvement. On his first day in office he directed the Department of Homeland Security to authorize local police to “perform the functions of immigration officers” to “the maximum extent permitted by law.”
Shortly before the government shutdown, ICE was poised to begin backing its recruitment efforts with money, announcing that it would reimburse cooperating police agencies for costs that previously had been borne by local departments and taxpayers.
But activists focused on the difference between what Harran said he intended to do and the much broader powers conferred within the agreement with ICE.
Harran signed up for the “Task Force Model,” the most far-reaching of the three types of 287(g) agreements. It allows local police to challenge people on the streets about their immigration status and arrest them for violations.
Harran said his deputies would not do that. Instead, he said, they would electronically check the immigration status of people who have contact with the sheriff’s office because of alleged criminal offenses. Those found to be in the country illegally would be turned over or transported to ICE, if the federal agency desires, he said.
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