Welcome to the weekly segment called This Week by the {Immigration} Numbers. I'll highlight some of the main takeaways from the week's news that you might have missed, but do it in a unique way. Rather than try to summarize everything, I'll pick a handful of figures each week that best capture where things are moving, explain why they matter, and provide a source where you can learn more. If you have a number to add to the mix or have a question about any of the numbers here, let me know in the comments.
0
The number of refugees fleeing religious persecution that the United States resettled in fiscal year 2026 through July.
The Trump administration sent a clear message to persecuted Christians and other religious minorities around the globe: “we don’t care about you.” For the first time ever, religious minorities were blocked from the refugee program entirely. Through July, only three refugees arrived from any of the 50 countries on the Open Doors World Watch List, all from Afghanistan and none of them members of a religious minority. Every other refugee admitted this year came as white Afrikaner South Africans. World Relief and Open Doors expect fiscal 2026 to be the first year in at least a quarter century, and likely in the program's entire history, in which persecuted religious minorities were completely shut out.
World Relief & Open Doors US. (2026, September 3). State of the Golden Door: Evaluating U.S. Refugee Resettlement and Asylum in Light of Global Christian Persecution. World Relief.
I talk with Matthew Soerens of World Relief about the report on Monday, September 28, at 3 p.m. ET. Details and registration: The Year the U.S. Resettled No One Fleeing Religious Persecution: A Conversation with World Relief's Matthew Soerens.
53,192
ICE had 53,192 people on GPS ankle monitors as of July 11, 2026, the most in any of the 26 counts this administration has published.
In addition to record detention numbers, ICE also has a policy to put as many people as possible on GPS ankle monitors. Although ICE calls this an ‘alternative to detention,’ critics say it’s simply another form of custody that strips people of their liberty and dignity while going through a civil process. The number of people on GPS ankle monitors rose from 20,012 on January 25, 2025, to 53,192 on July 11, 2026, and monitors now cover about 30% of the roughly 183,181 people in ATD. Evan Benz, managing attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told me this week, "This is really an alternative form of detention."
Learn more: Kocher, A. (2026, September 25). “This Is Really an Alternative Form of Detention”: Attorneys from Amica Center, Kennedy Human Rights, and Just Futures Law Discuss ICE’s 50,000 GPS Ankle Monitors. Austin Kocher.
98%
The share of habeas petitions for children in federal shelter custody that ended in the child's release, 40 of the 41 cases with a known outcome.
Immigrant children are being held in federal custody six times longer under this administration than under prior administrations, a prolonged timeline driven by a litany of contradictory paper hurdles that burden the sponsorship process. Lawyers have found that the most effective way to challenge this is to get children out of Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody by filing habeas corpus lawsuits. Out of the 41 habeas petitions Acacia Center for Justice identified with outcomes, 40 ended with the child released. Eighty percent of those children were out within 30 days of filing and a quarter within a week, often because ORR expedited the release itself rather than a judge ordering it. Jill Williams of Acacia asked the question that timeline raises. "Why are we having to get to this point where habeas petitions are filed anyway?"
Kocher, A. (2026, September 14). Habeas for Children: Learn About an Effective New Strategy to Free Kids from Prolonged Detention. Austin Kocher.
>200
More than 200 former judges have filed an amicus brief urging the full D.C. Circuit not to let the administration escape accountability for defying a court order.
The courts are about to decide whether defying a federal judge carries any consequence. In March 2025 the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to send more than 100 Venezuelan men to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), despite Chief Judge James Boasberg's order to halt the flights. On Tuesday, September 29, all 11 active judges of the D.C. Circuit hear argument on his criminal contempt inquiry. Judge Florence Pan has already written, "When the political branches cease to honor the judgments and decisions of the judiciary, the carefully calibrated structure of our government collapses."
American Civil Liberties Union. (2026, September 22). D.C. Circuit to Hear Upcoming Arguments on Trump Administration's Defiance of Court Order and CECOT Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act. American Civil Liberties Union.
$46B
The cost of the administration's plan to line the southern border with walls, barriers, roads and technology, which is now under construction in Texas's Big Bend region.
A new border wall is going up in Big Bend over the objections of the people who live there. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has started installing 30-foot steel panels along a 47-mile stretch of Hudspeth County, the first major construction in the region. CBP says it is building an average of 12 miles of barrier a week and has finished 200 miles since the administration took office. Landowners, ranchers and business owners sued earlier this month to stop it. Clara Benson, a founder of the No Big Bend Wall Coalition, said, "We will continue to fight for this land no matter what the outcome is."
Santana, R. (2026, September 18). Trump administration begins building border wall in Texas' Big Bend region. The Associated Press.
25
The number of years since the September 11 attacks, whose counterterrorism tools the administration has repointed at immigration enforcement.
The security state built after 9/11 now runs immigration enforcement. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), created in the post-9/11 restructuring that folded 22 agencies into the Department of Homeland Security, is now the country's highest-funded federal law enforcement agency. Agreements deputizing local police under the 287(g) program grew from 135 at the end of 2024 to 2,559 as of September 21. A 2025 registration order echoing post-9/11 special registration could reach 3.2 million people. Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh write that the result is "something resembling a domestic intelligence apparatus, with increasing repercussions for U.S. citizens."
Chishti, M., & Putzel-Kavanaugh, C. (2026, September 24). From Counterterrorism to Immigration Enforcement: 25 Years On, Post-9/11 U.S. Changes Have Been Repointed. Migration Policy Institute.
229
The number of 2026 Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants or their children, 45.8 percent of the list.
Immigrant families built a large share of the country's biggest businesses. Of this year's Fortune 500, 108 companies were founded by immigrants and 121 by the children of immigrants. Together those 229 companies brought in $9.8 trillion in revenue in fiscal 2025 and employ 15.3 million people worldwide. Every American Immigration Council report since the first, in 2011, has found more than two in five of the country's largest companies founded by immigrants or their children.
American Immigration Council. (2026, September 16). Nearly Half of Fortune 500 Companies in 2026 Were Founded by Immigrants or Their Children. American Immigration Council.
$707M
What ICE paid for the seven detention warehouses it now intends to sell.
ICE's warehouse detention plan is already wasting public money. Between January and April, ICE bought 11 warehouses for about $1.07 billion, then told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in June that it was working to sell seven of them. It had spent $7.7 million in nonrecoverable costs, such as zoning assessments and title insurance, to buy those seven, and about $12.8 million through August on utilities, security and other services to keep them. GAO found ICE expanded detention without a strategic plan, and any sale below the $707 million purchase price would only add to the waste.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2026, September 24). Immigration Detention: Urgent Planning Needed to Avoid Further Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (GAO-26-108663). U.S. Government Accountability Office.
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