IN THE NEWS TODAY
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS
Second Circuit Questions Federal Rule Behind $73 Million Cut to New York Highway Funding
Courthouse News Service | September 28, 2026
A federal appeals panel questioned DOT’s interpretation of commercial-driver licensing rules used to withhold more than $73 million in highway funds from New York. The state says the affected immigrant drivers had lawful status and satisfied federal licensing requirements; a Justice Department lawyer acknowledged the rule underlying the dispute is “somewhat ambiguous.”
New York Sheriffs Challenge Reach of State Restrictions on ICE Cooperation
New York Focus | September 28, 2026
New York’s Local Cops, Local Crimes Act clearly bars 287(g) agreements, but litigation is now testing whether its prohibition on certain “formal or informal” arrangements also restricts broader cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE.
Third-Country Deportation Dispute Moves Forward at Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States | September 28, 2026
Immigrant plaintiffs filed their response Monday to the administration’s emergency application in DHS v. D.V.D., completing the principal briefing requested by Justice Jackson on whether the government may resume its challenged third-country removal procedures while litigation continues.
State Study Finds Immigrant Workers Generated $177 Million in Income Taxes
Maine Public | September 28, 2026
A new state analysis finds Maine’s foreign-born workers generated more than $177 million in state income taxes from 2020–2024, earned approximately $2.25 billion in personal income and helped support roughly 74,000 jobs. Their labor-force participation rate was 70%, compared with 60% statewide.
New York Health-Care Groups Continue Warning About Immigrant Workforce Losses
LaborPress | September 28, 2026
Health-care unions and worker organizations say immigration-status and work-authorization changes are increasingly intersecting with hospital, nursing-home and home-care staffing needs. Monday’s report builds on earlier evidence of TPS-related job losses at individual New York hospitals but does not provide a new statewide loss estimate.
Investigation Finds ICE Shifting Toward Faster, Less Visible Arrest Operations
The Guardian | September 28, 2026
A national investigation describes a shift from large, highly visible immigration operations toward smaller and more dispersed arrests, alongside continued expansion of ICE staffing and local-law-enforcement partnerships.
IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION FACT OF THE DAY
6.8% of European-born New Yorkers lived below the poverty threshold, compared with 10.1% of New Yorkers overall.
IIIRP’s Data Gateway identifies 701,572 European-born New Yorkers, representing 15.8% of the state’s foreign-born population in the underlying 2021 ACS data. Immigrant Integration Institute
Source: IIIRP Data Gateway | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2021