December 23, 2025

2 entries on this date.

Dec 23

ICE re-detained Jorge Gonzalez Ochoa one minute before his court-ordered release, defying a federal judge's order

On December 23, 2025, at 9:59 a.m. — one minute before a federal court order required his release — ICE officers served the Muscatine County Jail with a new arrest warrant for Jorge Gonzalez Ochoa, a 28-year-old Colombian asylum seeker, circumventing a December 22 release order by U.S. District Judge Stephen H. Locher. ICE had not yet prepared the legally required Notice to Appear when it issued the arrest warrant, and Judge Locher later found the agency sent the notice by regular mail to obscure the sequence and "cover its tracks." Gonzalez Ochoa was not released until January 9, 2026 — seventeen days after the original release order.

Dec 23

The State Department moved to exclude or deport five noncitizen researchers under a visa policy targeting online 'censorship'

On December 23, 2025, the State Department announced it would exclude or deport five individuals — including two leaders of Coalition for Independent Technology Research member organizations — under a visa-restriction policy that Secretary of State Marco Rubio first announced in May 2025 to target foreign "censorship" of Americans' speech. Initially framed as aimed at foreign officials, the policy had by then expanded into a broader campaign against noncitizen researchers, fact-checkers, and trust-and-safety workers who study social media platforms and online harms. Rubio said the Department "stands ready and willing to expand" the list if others did not "reverse course."