President-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status.

Republicans are pointing to newly released immigration enforcement data to bolster their argument that the Biden administration is letting migrants who have committed serious crimes go free in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released data to Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales in response to a request he made for information about people under ICE supervision either convicted of crimes or facing criminal charges.

The suspect in a deadly road rage shooting on Houston’s Southwest Freeway appeared in court Thursday.

A coalition of human rights groups says migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. are being set up for rejection at a privately run detention center in New Mexico.

Police in the Montgomery County town of Splendora are asking for better federal oversight of immigrants who are believed to have been smuggled into the United States. The concern comes after police said they recently had to release a group of immigrants they believe are in the country illegally.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Houston Field Office, with assistance from ERO Mexico and the Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement (SAFE) Task Force in Mexico, removed a foreign fugitive from the U.S. who is wanted for homicide in his home country of Mexico.

A man with multiple sexually and communicable diseases is accused of intentionally spreading infection to an office worker by repeatedly urinating in her water bottle, according to court documents.

U.S. immigration authorities are planning to issue photo ID cards to immigrants in deportation proceedings.

A detention center in the wind-swept California desert town of Adelanto could house nearly 2,000 migrants facing the prospect of deportation.

U.S. immigration authorities are turning to smartphones to keep tabs on immigrants and ensure they attend their deportation hearings.

The Biden administration will stop detaining migrants facing deportation if they are pregnant or recently gave birth in a reversal of a Trump-era policy.

Immigrant advocates say they have reached a settlement with the U.S. government so they can keep operating a free hotline that lets detained immigrants report concerns about custody conditions.

A government watchdog says the Trump administration forced migrant parents to leave the United States without their children under its family separation policy.

Here are some of the takeaways from Tuesday's visit to the facility in Donna, Texas, by The Associated Press and CBS. What's clear is that the Donna facility, which opened Feb. 9, is tremendously overcrowded. Rooms walled with plastic partitions and designed for 32 children held more than 500 on Tuesday. The Biden administration let journalists tour the Donna facility for the first time Tuesday, with permission for photos and video to be shot. By comparison, in 2018 the Trump administration allowed reporters to tour its main holding facility in McAllen, Texas, but did not allow journalists to take photos or video.

Used routinely by U.S. immigration and border agents, mobile fingerprinting figures in a biometric data collection scheme the Trump administration is seeking to broadly expand in its final weeks. The app allows field agents to remotely check fingerprints they collect against those registered in DHS and FBI databases. Under extraordinary pandemic-related powers beginning in March, Border Patrol agents have used mobile fingerprinting devices to assist in immediate expulsions to Mexico without giving migrants a chance to seek asylum. O’Neill tells migrants they have a constitutional right not to submit to mobile fingerprinting. But activists say immigration agents’ behavior often contradicts that claim.

A judge on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020 has blocked a Trump administration rule that would have put up new roadblocks for asylum-seekers convicted of a variety of crimes. The federal judge in San Francisco says current federal law already includes plenty of disqualifying crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio, File)LOS ANGELES – A federal judge on Thursday blocked a Trump administration rule about to take effect that would have put up new roadblocks for asylum-seekers convicted of a variety of crimes. The rule would have also denied asylum to people convicted of crimes that an adjudicator “knows or has reason to believe” was committed to supporting a criminal street gang. Asylum is for people fleeing persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group.

HOUSTON – The official Twitter account for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, @ICEgov, doesn’t exist or has been disabled, as of this writing. It’s unclear at this time whether the account was intentionally deleted. The ICE page on Twitter, as of 1:23 p.m. on Nov. 12, 2020. (Copyright 2020 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.) The agency’s other social media -- its Facebook and Instagram accounts -- appear to be functioning normally at this hour.

And it added to charges from Trump critics that DHS and other agencies have become overtly politicized under this president. “Now, he’s trying to use the department to benefit himself electorally.”Few issues are as important to Trump's political base as immigration. But attention to the issue has ebbed in the 2020 race, as Trump has focused more on unrest in Democratic cities, leftist activists and other matters. Then Wolf followed up with the news conference to announce the enforcement operation — a fairly routine operation that resulted in a fairly low number of arrests. Trump has said Biden wants to abolish ICE and end deportations, but that's not correct.