Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)

06/05/2026

Sandra Hafraoui spent months trying to bring her husband, Latif Hafraoui, home after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him for 108 days on a 16-year-old deportation order he said he didn't know existed. The New Jersey husband and wife, who are American and Moroccan by birth, respectively, had been married 15 years and were headed to Florida when immigration agents detained them at the airport in August 2025. He was locked up at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, the detention facility currently at the center of opposition to President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign. The immigration order went to the wrong address 16 years ago. He missed the court date and a judge ordered him deported in absentia. Most recently, the judge reversed the deportation order while Latif was still detained at Delaney Hall. The couple said they are trying to to forget the fear and anxiety Sandra felt and the horrors Latif experienced. Here is a photo essay about their battle.

Sandra Hafraoui spent months trying to bring her husband home after ICE detained him on a 16-year-old deportation order he didn’t know existed.

06/05/2026

After a marathon 18-hour vote that ended on early Friday morning, the Senate passed a funding package of roughly $70 billion for immigration enforcement agencies. While the Senate passage is a victory for Republicans, who have been trying to pass immigration enforcement funding legislation for months, the overnight vote-a-rama exposed rifts within party ranks. The legislation now heads for a vote in the House of Representatives, which could happen as early as next week.

After a marathon 18-hour vote, the Senate has funded immigration enforcement. The GOP bill funds ICE and the Border Patrol for three years.

06/05/2026

Children Separated From Parents a Second Time, Report Finds

06/05/2026

When Pope Leo XIV goes to Pavia, Italy, on June 20 to venerate St. Augustine's remains, he's scheduled to take a half-hour detour to also venerate St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. Pavia is near the birthplace of the patroness of immigrants. People close to the pope say he and Mother Cabrini have a common "compassion" for the poor and marginalized, especially migrants and refugees. "And so there's a devotion to the cause of Mother Cabrini ... the cause of migrants," said Augustinian Father John Lydon. She represents "the church's embrace of immigrants," he said, and the pope wants to acknowledge that.

"I don't know if it's a particular devotion to her as a saint, but she represents, for the church, the church's embrace of immigrants."

06/04/2026

Human beings have terrifying capacity to normalize what would have once stopped them cold. A recent Brookings Institution report estimates that about 145,000 U.S. citizen children — since January 2025 — have experienced the separation of a parent through immigration enforcement. Researchers estimate that more than one-third are under the age of 6. More than 22,000 children have lost both co-resident parents to federal immigration enforcement. No government agency assumes responsibility for the children enforcement leaves behind. Most have disappeared into informal arrangements, with relatives, neighbors, community organizations already stretched thin. These children U.S. citizens. So the question is: How much more will we absorb before we stop, before this becomes impossible to look away from?

"In 2018, photographs of children in chain-link enclosures produced a genuine moment of national recoil. Many Americans believed they were watching an aberration, a policy excess that would be corrected," writes James Lomastro. But "the danger was never only in the specific policy. It was in the les...

06/04/2026

In response to the rising tensions at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, the Archdiocese of Newark held a prayer service May 31 about a half-mile from the entrance. The service included testimony from a family with a relative detained inside for the past two months and a bilingual rosary. In attendance were Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, representatives of parish migration teams, and relatives of detainees and protesters. "As we saw the violence escalate at Delaney Hall since Memorial Day, the archdiocese wanted to have a prayerful, peaceful presence there," said Father Timothy Graff, Secretary of Parish Mission and Vitality for the archdiocese.

In response to rising tensions at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility in Newark, NJ, the Archdiocese of Newark held a prayer service about half a mile from its entrance. Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., attended the May 31 service, which included a bilingual Rosary and a testimony from a...

06/04/2026

Catholics, immigrants, advocates, and faith leaders will gather together on the Feast of Corpus Christi for prayer and a public witness for migrants, refugees, and displaced people. Join us and so many others to stand in solidarity with immigrants!

06/04/2026

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin testified June 2 before a Senate subcommittee as Senate Republicans seek to pass an immigration enforcement bill that is a source of concern for the bishops. The Senate is considering approving an additional $72 billion for immigration enforcement. In a June 1 letter to key senators, Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, asked that senators consider key policy reforms to protect the dignity of migrants and prevent family separations. The letter urged lawmakers to ensure religious rights for detainees and to reimplement restrictions on immigration enforcement at houses of worship. He also supported a bill which would ease immigration restrictions on foreign religious workers.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin testified before a Senate appropriations subcommittee as the U.S. bishops called for changes to an immigration enforcement bill.

06/04/2026

Americans Once Recoiled at the Idea of Family Separation, But It's Happening Again

06/04/2026

A surge in fraud targeting immigrants has overwhelmed legal aid organizations and doubled federal complaint filings. The Federal Trade Commission, responsible for consumer protection, said the reported scams more than doubled, from 613 in 2023 to 1,291 in 2024. It got worse in 2025, with almost 2,000 complaints and at least $94.4 million stolen from immigrants. Experts say the number could be even higher as many immigrants don't report scams out of fear of being deported. With increased immigration enforcement, shifting immigration policies and heightened rhetoric targeting immigrants, the current political climate has made immigrants especially vulnerable to these scams, said Magdalena Barbosa, director of legal services for the Diocese of Brooklyn-based Catholic Migration Services.

A surge in immigration fraud has overwhelmed legal aid organizations, doubled federal complaint filings, and, in at least one documented case, led directly to deportation.