2,044 events on record Subscribe September 10, 2026
Standing Record home The Standing Record A non-partisan record of US democratic norms —
and the events that erode them.

Timeline › 2026 › February › 18

February 18, 2026

7 entries on this date.

Judge held DOJ lawyer in contempt after ICE released habeas petitioner in Texas without ID, defying Minnesota order

On February 18, 2026, U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino held Justice Department attorney Matthew Isihara in civil contempt after ICE released habeas petitioner Rigoberto Soto Jimenez in El Paso, Texas without his identification documents, defying her order that he be released in Minnesota with his property returned. Provinzino lifted the contempt finding one day later once the documents were returned, but rejected the government's understaffing excuse as a problem "of its own making."

ICE defied a New Jersey court's no-transfer order, moving detainee Jagpreet Singh to a Brooklyn facility

On February 18, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred detainee Jagpreet Singh from Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, roughly 22 hours after a federal judge had issued a text order barring his transfer outside New Jersey. U.S. District Judge Christine P. O'Hearn called the move "a blatant violation" of her order and ordered Singh's immediate release, later noting the government had separately admitted to more than 50 similar court-order violations in the preceding 60 days.

ICE detained DACA recipient Juan Chavez Velasco despite his active legal status

ICE agents detained Juan Chavez Velasco, a DACA recipient who had held continuous status for 13 years, outside his Weslaco, Texas neighborhood on February 18, 2026, as he drove breast milk to his premature newborn daughter in a hospital NICU. He told agents he had active DACA status; they told him it didn't matter, and DHS later said DACA does not confer legal status or protection from deportation. He was held for nearly three months at the Webb County Detention Center in Laredo, developing kidney stones and lacking adequate food and clean water, before being released to his family in May 2026.

ICE arrested DACA recipient at her permanent residency interview and deported her the next day under a decades-old removal order

On February 18, 2026, ICE agents arrested Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a 27-year Sacramento resident with active DACA status, at a scheduled permanent residency interview and deported her to Mexico the following day under a 1998 removal order, denying her any notice or opportunity to contest the removal. U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins found the deportation a "flagrant violation" of Estrada Juarez's DACA protections and on March 24 issued a temporary restraining order requiring her return within seven days. She was reunited with her family in Sacramento by March 31, 2026.

USCIS and ICE directed agents to detain refugees who miss one-year green-card deadline

On February 18, 2026, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons issued a joint memo directing immigration agents to arrest and detain refugees who have not obtained a green card within one year of admission to the United States, rescinding 2010 ICE guidance under which that delay was not grounds for detention. The memo, disclosed in a federal court filing tied to refugee detentions in Minnesota, lets agents hold affected refugees in immigration detention while their green-card applications are pending.

DOJ Civil Rights Division opened investigations into three Michigan school districts over gender-identity curriculum

On February 18, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced investigations into the Lansing, Detroit, and Godfrey-Lee public school districts in Michigan, covering roughly 64,000 students, examining whether the districts taught sexual-orientation and gender-identity content without notifying parents of an opt-out right and whether they restricted bathrooms and locker rooms by biological sex. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the department is "fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education." The department declined to explain why these three districts, of Michigan's more than 800, were selected.

Kansas Legislature overrode Gov. Kelly's veto to enact SB244 restricting transgender facility access and invalidating ID changes

On February 18, 2026, the Kansas Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto of House Substitute for SB244, enacting a law that requires multiple-occupancy facilities in government-owned or -leased buildings to be designated by sex assigned at birth and requires driver's licenses and birth certificates to reflect sex assigned at birth, invalidating documents previously amended by transgender residents. The House voted 87-37 to override, a day after the Senate voted 31-9. The law creates a private right of action with liquidated damages of at least $1,000 and directs the state attorney general to enforce compliance by non-complying agencies.