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Immigrant women who say they were the victims in domestic disputes are being arrested as suspects, cleared by prosecutors and then handed to ICE through jail detainers, a ProPublica investigation published Wednesday found. The cases expose a gap in the protections a federal court restored in May for abuse survivors: those protections reach people who already have a U visa, T visa or VAWA petition pending, and a woman arrested as the alleged aggressor usually has none.
ProPublica reviewed hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed since January 2025 and found dozens of people arrested on suspicion of domestic violence who were turned over to ICE even though charges were dropped or never filed. The outlet said there is no comprehensive way to track how often it happens. Its two central cases come from Wyoming, Michigan. A Cuban woman identified as Leya was arrested in April after her boyfriend called 911 and said there had been “no violence”; prosecutors declined to charge her, citing insufficient evidence, but Kent County honored an ICE detainer and she spent about four months in detention before her release on bond in late August. A Peruvian asylum seeker identified as Pilar, arrested in October 2025 after a parking-lot argument, was never charged either. She is approaching a year in custody.
The route to ICE did not require a formal partnership. Kent County has no 287(g) agreement, yet ProPublica found its jail turned over more immigrants to ICE in the first half of 2026 than during the entire Biden administration. Fingerprints taken at booking are shared with federal immigration databases, ICE files a detainer asking the jail to hold the person, and the jail decides whether to honor it. Where agencies have signed 287(g) agreements, the handoff is built in, and ProPublica counts more than 2,600 participating agencies now, up from fewer than 150 in January 2025. Add the 24 states that, according to ProPublica, require an arrest when officers find probable cause of a domestic assault, and a single 911 call can open a path to removal proceedings.
Officials frame the cases differently. DHS said both women entered the country illegally in 2022 and that “we will never apologize for deporting illegal aliens, because that’s how we save lives.” A Kent County sheriff’s spokesman said a dismissed charge “does not, by itself, mean the original arrest lacked probable cause.” The county’s prosecutor, Chris Becker, told ProPublica that current enforcement has had “a chilling impact” on women reporting abuse.
Where the May court order stops
On May 20, Judge André Birotte Jr. of the federal district court in Los Angeles stayed 2025 ICE guidance that replaced an earlier instruction for officers to refrain from pursuing the removal of people with pending VAWA, U or T petitions, in Immigration Center for Women and Children v. Noem. He certified classes covering people with pending U, T or VAWA petitions who are detained, are in deferred action or are seeking a stay of removal, Bloomberg Law reported. Bloomberg Law put the number of people waiting on such petitions at about 600,000. The administration has appealed.
The order helps only people who have already filed, and the women in these cases face hurdles to filing at all. A U visa petition needs a certification from a police agency, prosecutor or judge that the victim has been helpful in investigating a qualifying crime, often the same agency whose officers arrested her. A VAWA self-petition covers abuse only by a U.S. citizen or green card holder who is a spouse, parent or adult child, so abuse by a boyfriend does not qualify regardless of his status. And U visas are capped at 10,000 principal approvals a year, which helps explain the long queue. Pilar’s pending asylum case is a separate track the class order does not touch.
The practical effect is that the protections restored in May depend on paperwork filed before an arrest, while the arrest is what starts the removal process. If the appeal of Birotte’s order succeeds, even that narrower group loses its shield; if it fails, the cases ProPublica documented will still fall outside it unless Congress, DHS or local jails change how detainers reach people who were never charged.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources: ProPublica, “These Women Were Trying to Escape Domestic Abuse. ICE Detained Them Instead.” (Oct. 14, 2026); Bloomberg Law, “ICE Guidance Making It Easier to Deport Victims of Crime Paused” (May 22, 2026).
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