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Tracking Habeas Cases
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

As federal immigration agents surge into communities and detain people, the number of cases filed by those claiming their detention is illegal has risen to historic highs. ProPublica is tracking the volume of these cases, known as habeas petitions, as they overwhelm legal advocates and government attorneys.

Immigrants filed more habeas cases in the first 13 months of the second Trump administration than in the past three administrations combined, including his first.

View the tracker on our site.

The post Tracking Habeas Cases appeared first on ProPublica.

Could Trump’s intervention bring an end to the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis?
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

Sudan’s civil war has grown into a proxy war between competing regional powers, a dynamic that could hold the key to its resolution through the intervention of the world’s sole superpower.

Hundreds of thousands have died in the civil war, and a resulting famine has put millions more at risk. The rest of the continent is also dealing with countless numbers of refugees. The prospect of peace gained newfound hope when President Donald Trump said on Nov. 19, 2025, that he would focus his peacemaking efforts on resolving the conflict.

Despite his hopeful rhetoric, halting the war in Sudan could prove to be among his most difficult tasks yet.

Sudanese soldiers parade in the streets of Omdurman, a district of Khartoum, Sudan, on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, to mark the 70th anniversary of Sudanese independence. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

What are the difficulties in getting involved?

One of the primary issues facing Trump is the moral ambiguity of the civil war itself. Most analysts view the choice of who to back as a choice between a greater and lesser evil. The Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces were the two main belligerents who carried out the Darfur genocide that spurred so much U.S. interest in the 2000s, and both carried out the 2019 massacre that sparked the #blueforsudan social media campaign.

The crimes of the RSF are better known, in part because it carried out the greatest crime of the war so far in El Fasher.

However, the SAF is replete with its own problems, viewed by some analysts as equally bad as the RSF. Despite having the prestige of being Sudan’s historical military, the civil-war SAF is more a hodgepodge of militias. Sudan specialist and human rights researcher Jehanne Henry explained that the SAF is “not much of an army,” being more a collection of militia groups aligning themselves with the SAF and fully reliant on foreign help.

INVESTIGATORS SAY EL FASHER MASSACRE DEATH TOLL COMPARABLE TO THAT OF ENTIRE GAZA WAR IN JUST THREE WEEKS

Though the RSF’s crimes have received more attention, Henry views the groups as roughly morally equivalent. The fog of war means there is not enough evidence to “scientifically conclude that one side is worse than the other.”

Karr views the RSF as worse, saying their engagement in ethnic cleansing and possible genocide puts it over the edge.

All this presents a moral conundrum.

The state of the conflict after the fall of El Fasher also presents its own difficulties. With the fall of the last SAF …

Immigrants Who Say Their Detention Is Illegal Have Filed More Than 18,000 Cases. It’s a Historic High.
Every delay has consequences.

The Trump administration’s push for mass deportations has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, more than were filed under the last three administrations combined — including President Donald Trump’s first term.

So far this year, immigrants are filing on average more than 200 of these cases, known as habeas petitions, daily across the country, with California and Texas accounting for about 40% of new cases, a ProPublica analysis of federal court filings found. To keep tabs on this historic rise, ProPublica is publishing a habeas case tracker.

“I don’t recall a time that anything like this has ever happened,” said Daniel Caudillo, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law and a recently departed immigration judge.

More Immigrants Than Ever Are Challenging Detention

An analysis of habeas cases since 2009 shows that immigrants have filed more challenges to their detention in the first 13 months of Trump’s second term than in the last three administrations combined — and the number keeps rising.

Immigration-related habeas cases filed by month. Source: ProPublica analysis of Public Access to Court Electronic Records and Free Law Project. Ruth Talbot and Pratheek Rebala/ProPublica

The wave of habeas petitions comes in response to new administration policies aimed at ramping up the number of deportations. Among those are policies that require the majority of immigrants who entered the country illegally to remain in detention while their immigration cases are proceeding.

Lawyers say these policies upend decades of legal precedent that previously allowed immigrants who had been in the country for years and posed no security or flight risk a chance to remain in their communities until an immigration judge could determine whether they could stay in the country legally.

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Tracking Habeas Cases

On Friday night, a divided three-judge panel in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with the administration in limiting bond hearings to immigrants who entered the country lawfully. Caudillo called the decision “devastating,” adding that as a result, most immigrants held in states that fall under the circuit, which includes Texas, will now be subject to mandatory detention. Appeals of judges’ rulings in habeas cases challenging immigrants’ detention have been filed in nine of the 12 regional appeals courts, meaning the question could ultimately find its way to the Supreme Court.

A large majority of federal judges who’ve ruled on the habeas petitions so far are siding with immigrants. A recent analysis by Politico found that over 300 judges have ruled against the administration’s new detention policies, while only 14 have upheld them. The result is that federal judges frequently are ordering the government to either release immigrants from detention or offer them a bond hearing before an immigration judge to determine whether they are eligible for release while their immigration case proceeds.

Officials from the White House and Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a list of questions, but in …

Far-left nonprofits in the hot seat as lawmaker exposes them for 'sowing chaos' in US
Same show, different day.

FIRST ON FOX: Hours before banging the gavel to commence a hearing Tuesday to investigate the dynamic of "malign foreign influence," House Committee on Ways and Means chair Jason Smith escalated his investigation into the China-based, American-born Marxist tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, who has allegedly been "sowing chaos and spreading Chinese propaganda, possibly in coordination with a foreign government."
Fox News Digital has obtained copies of letters that Smith sent on Monday night to two U.S. nonprofits – BreakThrough BT Media Inc. and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research – demanding records of their ties to Singham and alleging they are promoting propaganda aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Smith will chair a hearing called, "Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond." The hearing will be broadcast online at the committee’s website. Singham, Tricontinental and BreakThrough BT Media, which publishes articles as "BreakThrough News," didn't respond to requests for comment.
Congressional investigators say the Singham network sits at the center of a malign foreign influence operation that allegedly exploits U.S. nonprofit laws to inject anti-American propaganda into domestic protest movements and sow discord from within the United States.
In separate letters, Smith demanded records from BreakThrough and Tricontinental, warning that both tax-exempt organizations may be operating outside their lawful purpose as possible unregistered foreign agents, while helping to fuel domestic unrest under the guise of journalism and academic research.
ANTI-ICE 'DIGITAL MINUTEMEN' USE MILITARY-GRADE SURVEILLANCE TACTICS AGAINST FEDS
The letters describe a full-spectrum operation, with funding aligned with foreign interests flowing into tax-exempt nonprofits that produce ideological research, media narratives and social media messaging, which are then deployed onto U.S. streets through tightly choreographed protests.
Over the past year, Fox News Digital has documented a pattern of coordinated protests by socialist, communist and Marxist groups, revealing a synchronized ecosystem of funding, media amplification, ideological framing and street-level mobilization that aligns with the strategic interests of hostile foreign governments, including the People’s Republic of China.
"Tax-exempt status is a privilege not a right," Smith told Fox News Digital. "Nonprofits must remain accountable and refuse to act as instruments of hostile foreign governments."

The Ways and Means Committee …

Jon Husted makes big-tent pitch to Ohio union workers: ‘Don’t have to fight over the pie’
Who benefits from this decision?

Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) is rejecting the class warfare-fueled campaign of ex-Sen. Sherrod Brown as the two battle for blue-collar votes in Ohio’s marquee Senate race.

Husted, appointed last year to replace Vice President JD Vance in the Senate, has a simple message for the more than 600,000 union members who live and work in Ohio and could prove decisive to his race against Brown this fall: “Businesses have to succeed for labor to succeed.”

“The UAW can’t succeed unless GM succeeds and Ford succeeds,” he told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “The construction trades can’t succeed unless there’s new investment in manufacturing equipment. The operating engineers can’t succeed unless there’s an investment in infrastructure.”

Husted, who is campaigning heavily on President Donald Trump’s signature tax law, is making a pro-business pitch that the labor movement has traditionally viewed with skepticism, and one that Brown, who is attempting a political comeback after losing his Senate seat in 2024, has criticized as a handout to the rich.

But Husted is betting that Brown’s message, which casts the political moment as a struggle between corporations and their workers, will fall flat as rank-and-file union members show a growing willingness to back Republicans.

Almost half of Ohio’s union households voted for President Donald Trump in the last presidential election, according to 2024 exit polling, while labor leaders have begun to defect from Brown, too. Most recently, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers announced its support for Husted, marking the fourth union to switch sides in the race to date.

SHERROD BROWN LOSES FOURTH UNION ENDORSEMENT TO REPUBLICAN JON HUSTED

“They know they can count on me,” Husted said. “They can trust me, that I have worked with both business and labor to show them that we don’t have to fight over the pie like Sherrod Brown wants to do, that we can grow the pie, and everybody can get more work, higher wages, and see growth in their businesses when we all work together.” 

Husted is pointing to his long reputation in the state to explain the labor endorsements. His career in Ohio politics extends back to the early 2000s, and he served six years as Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R-OH) lieutenant governor before his appointment to the Senate last January. 

Husted also benefits from a rightward shift in Ohio’s voting electorate that has made statewide office increasingly difficult to obtain for Democrats. Brown, in fact, was …

How many Russians and Ukrainians have died in the Russia-Ukraine War?
We're watching the same failure loop.

Russia and Ukraine have devoted much of their public relations efforts to inflating the casualties of their opponents and playing down their own, making an objective count difficult in one of the bloodiest wars of the 21st century.

The inflation of enemy casualty statistics and the downplaying of friendly casualty statistics have been hallmarks of war propaganda since its modern birth with the printing press. This PR war has reached new heights with the Russia-Ukraine War.

In this image made from video provided by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, Russian Multiple rocket launcher TOS-1A fires towards Ukrainian positions on an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Kyiv seeks to boost international support by portraying its outnumbered forces as punching well above their weight by mowing down disproportionate hordes of enemy troops. Moscow seeks to downplay domestic fears by portraying its own forces as suffering relatively little as its firepower superiority takes out legions of enemy troops from afar.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brought attention back to this psychological struggle with his offering of a remarkably low death count for Ukrainian soldiers.

“Officially, on the battlefield, the number of soldiers killed, whether career soldiers or mobilized ones, is 55,000,” Zelensky told France 2 in an interview. “And there are a large number of people that Ukraine considers missing.”

This total is highly improbable and was largely dismissed by analysts. The true total is currently impossible to estimate, but some factors and information give hints.

Historical precedent

The Russia-Ukraine War features an unprecedented situation in modern history: two large, developed, near-peer rivals of roughly equal technological capabilities engaging each other in all-out battles using most of their combat potential.

Most conventional wars of recent history have been between technologically or quantitatively mismatched foes, with casualties likewise heavily unbalanced towards the superior side. Wars such as the American-led invasion of Iraq, the Russo-Georgian War, and the coalition war against ISIS saw the numerical and technological superiority of the larger belligerent result in far more casualties for the inferior side.

The closest equivalent to the Russia-Ukraine War is the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While most of their military …

Georgia RNC members clear way for national party support of Burt Jones
Why resist verification?

Top state Republicans in Georgia have quietly opened the door for the Republican National Committee to support Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s hotly contested primary for governor.

The RNC normally maintains strict neutrality in party primaries to let voters — not party leaders — choose its nominee. Any move to intervene in Georgia, however, could dramatically reshape a crowded race for an open governor's seat in a premiere battleground state. It could give Jones, President Donald Trump’s handpicked choice, a boost in a field that includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a target of Trump’s ire ever since he refused to echo the president’s falsehoods about the 2020 election in his state.

Georgia’s three RNC members signed letters late last year and early this year waiving the party rule that bars the RNC from intervening in contested primaries, according to three people familiar with the agreement. That move allows the national party to provide financial or operating support to Jones and coordinate with him ahead of the May primary.

It’s unclear whether the RNC will move to support Jones in the crowded primary now that it’s been cleared to do so. But it was the RNC that first reached out to the Georgia party leaders about waiving the rule, according to a person familiar with the process — a sign the national party has at least considered getting off the sidelines. The RNC did not provide a comment.

Josh McKoon, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said he signed the letter waiving the RNC’s neutrality rule because Jones has Trump's endorsement.

“It was a no-brainer for me to sign the letter,” McKoon told POLITICO.

“From my perspective, I was going to remove any barriers to working with the RNC from a candidate that the president has clearly signaled as the candidate he wants to be the next governor,” he said.

Jones has long been a vocal supporter of Trump. He endorsed him for president in 2015, and as a state senator, was among the 16 Republicans who attempted to serve as electors in 2020 and falsely certify Trump’s loss in Georgia as a win. Jones received Trump’s official endorsement in August, and released a video with Jones last week calling him a “friend” who’s “going to make a great, great governor.”

Limited early public polling shows Jones leading the field, and he maintains a sizable war chest, but the race remains fluid, and a prolonged and expensive primary could complicate Republicans’ general election prospects. RNC support could help Jones fend off rivals and potentially avoid a prolonged primary fight, especially if he can avoid a run-off.

Last week, health care business owner Rick Jackson injected new uncertainty into the race by launching a surprise gubernatorial bid, pledging to spend $50 million of his own …

House Democrats’ campaign arm adds five GOP seats to target list
This is performative politics again.

House Democrats‘ campaign arm is adding five new Republican seats to its target list for the 2026 midterm elections, bringing the total to 44 districts “in play” for the party as it seeks to turn public opinion in its favor to win back the House majority.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is adding four GOP members and one open seat to its “Districts in Play.” The new targets are Reps. Jeff Crank (R-CO), Brad Finstad (R-MN), Ryan Zinke (R-MT), and John McGuire (R-VA), as well as the seat left vacant by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is running for governor in 2026.

The DCCC is also launching nominee fundraising pages so grassroots donors can contribute to the eventual Democratic nominee who is running in a district in play.

Democrats’ chances of flipping the new districts in play are slim but not impossible. Crank’s and Zinke’s seats are rated as “likely Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, while Finstad’s, McGuire’s, and Mace’s seats are considered “solid Republican.”

But the addition of the five districts to the DCCC’s target list shows that Democrats are bullish on flipping the House majority this fall. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) only has a one-seat majority after Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX) won a special election runoff and was sworn in last week to replace the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner.

The House majority typically flips to the party out of the White House in a midterm cycle, and Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to take back the majority. The Cook Political Report has Democrats projected to win as many as 14 seats, shifting 18 competitive seats toward Democrats earlier this year.

LEADER JEFFRIES COULD BE ‘SPEAKER JEFFRIES’ SOON. WHAT CHALLENGES COULD HE FACE?

A majority of wins in the last four midterm elections have come from districts that a president carried or lost by less than 5 points. There are only four Republican incumbents who represent seats won by former Vice President Kamala Harris, and only 10 seats where President Donald Trump won by 5 points or less in the 2024 election. 

The five new DCCC targets all won reelection in 2024 handily. Finstad, Mace, and McGuire defeated their Democratic opponents by nearly 60% of the vote, with Zinke winning by 52.3% and Crank by 55%.

Senate races to avert third shutdown as DHS deal takes shape
Same show, different day.

The Senate is scrambling to avoid a third government shutdown under President Donald Trump, and after negotiations seemingly appeared to hit a brick wall, lawmakers are cautiously optimistic that a deal could be made. 
Senate Republicans received Senate Democrats' "partisan wishlist" of demands over the weekend, sources familiar with negotiations told Fox News Digital. The White House sent over its own counter-proposal, but several lawmakers weren't clear what was in package as of Monday night. 
Some, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wouldn't say, but noted that congressional Democrats and the White House were "trading papers," and signaled that the back and forth activity was a good sign of negotiations moving forward. 
But lawmakers aren't out of the woods yet, a reality that Thune warned of since Senate Democrats demanded a two-week funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress has until Friday to avert a shutdown and little time to actually move a short-term patch from one side of the building to the other. 
REPUBLICANS WARN DEMOCRATS' ICE REFORM PUSH IS COVER TO DEFUND BORDER ENFORCEMENT
Republicans are mulling another short-term extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to avert a partial shutdown. Thune said whether Democrats would sign off depended on how well background negotiations were going, but hinted that so far, things were moving toward a solution. 
"I think, based on what I'm familiar with about the discussion so far, I think there is, but we'll know more when the proposal comes back," Thune said. "Let's have a chance to evaluate it." 
Thune later said that he planned to tee up another CR on Tuesday, but noted that the length would "have to be negotiated. But let's see what the next day brings and we'll go from there."
Democrats’ prime objective is reining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. 
The proposal they submitted included items that are a bridge too far for Republicans, including requiring ICE agents to get judicial warrants, de-mask and have identification ready — some in the GOP warn doing so would lead to more agents being doxxed, or when a person’s private information is made public, like their address. 
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned that the "clock is ticking" for Republicans to respond. 
SHUTDOWN AVERTED FOR NOW, BUT SENATE WARNS DHS FIGHT COULD TRIGGER ANOTHER IN DAYS
"We have sent you our proposals, and they are exceedingly reasonable," Schumer said on the Senate …

DHS leaders face tense oversight hearing in Congress: ‘The start of a reckoning’
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

House lawmakers on Tuesday will get their first opportunity since President Donald Trump took office to question Department of Homeland Security agency leaders about the White House’s illegal immigrant deportation operation.

The leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will testify before the House Homeland Security Committee for its first oversight hearing for the trio of immigration agencies — and the hourslong showdown on Capitol Hill is expected to be a fiery one.

Lawmakers are trying to renegotiate the terms of a $64 billion DHS funding bill before it runs out Friday, while ICE and CBP face widespread criticism from Democrats over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota last month.

The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), told the Washington Examiner on Monday that he envisioned the hearing as the “start of a reckoning.”

“This hearing is going to be just the start of a reckoning for the Trump administration and its weaponization of government against our country,” Thompson wrote in a statement. “Donald Trump and Kristi Noem must be held accountable for the immigration operations creating chaos in our communities, terrorizing people, and hurting U.S. citizens and immigrants alike.”

House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) called for the oversight hearing roughly a week after ICE killed a woman in Minneapolis.

Federal immigration authorities sent to Minneapolis in early December and more than 3,000 were sent in by January following the revelation of a billion-dollar fraud scheme carried out by U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants from Somalia. In that time, the DHS and partner agencies at the Justice Department have arrested more than 4,000 illegal immigrants, but the effort has been met with the harshest blowback to date of half a dozen “sanctuary” cities that the Trump administration has tried to make examples of.

Democrats are likely to focus their questions of acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott on Tuesday on the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; the instructions that federal agents and officers in Minneapolis were given while making arrests; and what led to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s mischaracterization of the Pretti shooting.

House Democrats have called for a hearing with Noem and senior DHS officials as the Trump administration has attempted to carry out mass …