This week in immigration news – January 5, 2022

Highly contagious omicron could spread quickly through crowded ICE facilities

Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s prison project, speaks to NPR about the lack of transparency from ICE, and how unknown variables–like how many migrants are fully vaccinated against COVID-19–could affect transmission of Omicron in detention centers across the country.

Illinois’s law ending immigration detention in 2022 hits snag

A federal judge last week granted an extension and time for an appeal to counties that have legal challenges in the works against Illinois’s new law requiring counties to end agreements with the federal government to detain migrants in local jails.

The trip to the U.S. Southern border is hard, let alone for kids traveling alone

This past year has seen a historic rise in the number of migrant children seeking asylum in the United States–this story takes a deep-dive into their experiences.