Up to date Oct. 6, 2026, 10:16 p.m. ET
The American Civil Liberties Union launched a report on Tuesday, Oct. 6, slamming President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda.
“Previously 20 months, the Trump administration has taken tons of of actions to consolidate the president’s grip on energy, execute a radical redefining of who belongs in America, and enact the biggest rollback of civil rights and liberties in current historical past,” the ACLU report says. “Deportations have supplied a pretext, a distraction, and a authorized justification , because the administration assaults our particular person constitutional rights —impacting all Individuals.”
The ACLU is a civil rights group based to defend rights enshrined in the USA Structure.
The brand new 139-page report outlines 76 steps it says Trump has taken to essentially undermine American freedoms and democracy. Amongst its findings, the Trump White Home has used immigration coverage to silence journalists, surveil political opponents and entice hundreds in a punitive immigration detention system that sees folks despatched to prisons in nations they’ve by no means recognized earlier than.
USA TODAY has reached out to the White Home for touch upon the ACLU report.
“If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union is that this dedicated to the reason for legal unlawful aliens, it ought to change its identify,” the Division of Homeland Safety stated in response to the report. “Nationwide our regulation enforcement is focusing on public security threats—together with murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists.”
In line with the Transactional Information Entry Clearinghouse, an immigration knowledge undertaking based at Syracuse College, round 71% of the practically 65,800 folks in immigration detention in July had no legal convictions. A November 2025 report from Libertarian assume tank the CATO Institute discovered 5% of ICE detainees had violent convictions.
The report comes out at some extent the place the nation is gearing up for the 2026 midterm elections whereby who controls Congress for the remainder of Trump’s ultimate time period is at stake. Prime Democrats are warning the president and his loyalists are placing a plan in movement to probably steal ballots and in the end the election.
“Because the administration’s assets and attain develop, nobody is protected from its ever-widening internet of abuse,” the report says.
What’s lined within the ACLU report?
The sweeping report covers a few of Homeland Safety’s most high-profile moments, together with deadly shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, to less-publicized moments, amongst them the division’s use of license plate readers to monitor the motion of individuals nationwide.
However the report is damaged down into three classes: 25 assaults on civil liberties, 40 assaults on authorities establishments and 11 assaults on pluralistic democracy, as in assaults on society’s tolerance of minorities.
The report additionally presents 4 options, specifically immigration reform, banning Homeland Safety’s aggressive techniques and strengthening public oversight of presidency authorities, together with the White Home.
A full copy of the report is accessible on the ACLU web site.
This story has been up to date so as to add new data.
