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February 26, 2026

7 entries on this date.

ICE used a false missing-child pretext to detain Columbia senior Ellie Aghayeva without a warrant

Around 6 a.m. on February 26, 2026, five federal ICE agents entered an off-campus Columbia University residential building without a judicial warrant by telling building staff they were police searching for a missing child, then arrested Elmina "Ellie" Aghayeva, a 29-year-old Columbia senior from Azerbaijan. Columbia said security-camera footage captured the agents using the missing-child story to gain entry; the Department of Homeland Security said her student visa had been revoked in 2016 and disputed assertions that agents impersonated NYPD officers. Aghayeva was released the same afternoon after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appealed directly to President Trump, and was placed in removal proceedings.

Federal Protective Service cited immigrant-accompaniment volunteers for loitering in San Diego federal building

On February 26, 2026, Federal Protective Service officers cited volunteer Patrick Corrigan and at least three others for "loitering" in a hallway outside the ICE check-in office at San Diego's Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building, where FAITH program volunteers had accompanied immigrants to check-ins and court hearings for about a year without incident. FPS said the underlying no-loitering regulation dated to November 2025, but volunteers said the enforcement itself was new.

ICE agents stopped and arrested Rene Antonio Benitez while he was driving his daughter to school in Brentwood, New York

On February 26, 2026, ICE agents in Brentwood, New York, stopped Rene Antonio Benitez while he was driving his daughter to school, demanding to know where he was going before arresting and detaining him without a judicial warrant. Benitez was released the same day after his attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition. His arrest is one of eight named in the April 2026 class-action lawsuit Benitez v. DHS, which alleges ICE and CBP agents have conducted a systematic pattern of warrantless stops and arrests of Latino residents across New York based on race and ethnicity.

DOJ sues five more states for full voter rolls, bringing nationwide campaign to 29 states

On February 26, 2026, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced federal lawsuits against Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey for failing to produce their full statewide voter registration lists, bringing the Department's nationwide total to 29 states and the District of Columbia. DOJ asserted authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel production, inspection, and analysis of complete voter rolls — data that can include names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial Social Security or driver's license numbers — to cross-check for "improper registrations." The filings came after federal courts had dismissed several earlier DOJ voter-roll suits.

Miami prosecutor expands 'grand conspiracy' probe of Trump's investigators to 2016 Russia inquiry

On February 26, 2026, The New York Times reported that Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, had expanded a criminal "grand conspiracy" inquiry into former law-enforcement and intelligence officials who investigated Donald Trump, with subpoenas issued in recent weeks now reaching the FBI's 2016 investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and FBI interviews probing the 2020 false-electors case. The expansion built on subpoenas the Miami office issued in November 2025 — which went to figures including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — and a broadened late-January 2026 round seeking documents about the January 2017 intelligence-community assessment on Russian election interference. The Times noted there is no evidence the separate inquiries were a single plot, and that tying the Washington-based Russia and false-electors matters to the Florida classified-documents case lets prosecutors use a Miami grand jury drawn from a less Democratic jury pool.

Kansas invalidates driver's licenses and birth certificates of 1,000+ transgender residents

On February 26, 2026, Kansas invalidated the driver's licenses and birth certificates of more than 1,000 transgender residents who had previously corrected the sex marker on those documents, acting under a new state law that requires records to reflect sex assigned at birth. The same law bars transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity in government-owned or -leased buildings. Affected residents were directed to obtain replacement documents with no grace period.

Riverside County Sheriff Bianco seized 650,000 election ballots and launched unauthorized fraud probe, defying AG's halt order

On February 26, 2026, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco—a Republican candidate for California governor—seized approximately 650,000 ballots from a November 2025 special election and opened an unauthorized criminal investigation into alleged election fraud, relying entirely on disputed claims from a local activist group that county election officials had already publicly rejected. After California Attorney General Rob Bonta ordered him to halt the probe, Bianco defied the directive and seized an additional 426 boxes of ballots. On April 8, 2026, the California Supreme Court ordered Bianco to pause the investigation and preserve all seized materials while legal challenges to the seizure proceed.