Bipartisan Group of Legislators Keep Dream of Immigration Reform Alive with Reintroduced 'DIGNIDAD' Act
On July 15, members of Congress reintroduced what has sadly become an increasingly rare bit of legislation: an immigration reform bill aimed at addressing large-scale systematic problems with our immigration system, which has not received any major update since the 1990s. The “DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act” represents one of the most sweeping attempts to modify the immigration system that has been proposed in years. |
The Social Security Insolvency Crisis: How Deportation Makes It Worse
The Social Security benefits that over 61 million retired Americans rely on are already in trouble. A recent report from the Social Security Board of Trustees finds that without action from Congress, retirement benefits could be slashed by 23% as early as 2033. Deporting undocumented immigrants will only exacerbate the problem. |
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After 125 days imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious “mega-prison,” the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), Venezuelan nationals Edicson Quintero Chacón and Jose Manuel Ramos Bastidas were released and placed on a U.S.-brokered flight to Venezuela, alongside approximately 250 other Venezuelans whom the United States paid to detain at CECOT. Counsel for both men, including the American Immigration Council, expressed profound relief at their release and emphasized the urgent need for accountability from the U.S. government for disappearing them to CECOT in the first place.
The U.S. government sent the men to CECOT on March 15, 2025, where they were held incommunicado and without charges in a facility widely condemned for mass arbitrary detention and inhumane treatment. Both Mr. Quintero and Mr. Bastidas had previously been ordered removed from the United States, after which they told a federal court that they just wanted to return home to Venezuela. The U.S. government sent them to CECOT instead.
Their return to Venezuela was part of a prisoner swap deal that included the release from Venezuela of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
Read more: Trump Must Be Held Accountable for Disappearing Migrants to El Salvador
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The Council released our Mid-Year report this week, highlighting our 2025 successes so far.
These include expanding our pro bono legal services to detention centers in some of the most remote areas of the country, winning asylum for people unjustly in detention, and stopping the Trump administration from disappearing our clients to a mega prison in El Salvador.
Learn more about our impact: Mid-Year Report 2025
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Over the last decade, a surge in the availability and use of synthetic opioids has led to a staggering toll of overdoses in the United States. From 2013 to 2023, the national drug overdose death rate more than doubled, with drug overdose deaths peaking in 2022 at 107,941. Much of this was due to the rise in fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid commonly used for pain management in hospital settings, which was also responsible for 70% of overdose deaths in 2023. While overdose deaths have fallen from their record highs, the threat posed by synthetic opioids remains—as does the importance of properly understanding how fentanyl enters the United States.
This new fact sheet from the American Immigration Council uses two separate datasets to confirm what has long been reported by law enforcement sources and other researchers: that the majority of fentanyl smuggled across the southern border enters not on the backs of migrants crossing the border on foot, but in the vehicles and on the bodies of U.S. citizens and other lawful entrants seeking admission at land ports of entry.
Read more: Fentanyl Smuggling: Most Seizures Occur at Ports of Entry Where U.S. Citizens Are the Primary Smugglers
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“When there are no priorities [for ICE], everybody’s a priority. You’re very likely to see confusion, delay, wrongful arrest, more mistakes when law enforcement agencies, especially large ones, don’t have clear direction and guidance for prioritization.” |
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