Join our final live Q&A before the midterm elections, on 22 October at noon ET on the Guardian US site

Since Donald Trump started his second term in January 2025, immigration enforcement has remained a major issue for US voters, with arrests reaching record highs, operations becoming deadly and immigration raids hitting politicians’ homes. Our reporting has documented the experiences of those directly affected by the harsh conditions in detention centers and resistance to ICE agents on the ground.

Immigration will be a defining issue in the final weeks of campaigning for the 2026 US midterm elections.

The makeup of the Democratic party, plus key races to watch

Who are the groups financially backing the candidates in the midterms?

Will the Iran war cost Trump in the US midterm elections? Your questions answered

Exclusive: Trump has falsely claimed Afrikaners are facing ‘white genocide’, but very few have applied to live in US

The US government could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a media campaign in South Africa to figure out why more white Afrikaners are not applying to become refugees to the US, as Donald Trump had hoped.

State department officials, according to an August proposal seen by the Guardian, outlined a roughly $335,000 research and advertising effort after applications to the refugee program “trended lower than expected” since Afrikaners were allowed to apply directly online in November 2025. The document, written by the US mission in South Africa with a department research unit for the embassy in Pretoria, admits officials know little about why.

Account by Oscar Belgal differs sharply from that of DHS agents, who fired into vehicle with young boy in back seat

Lawyers for a man wounded by an immigration officer while driving with his young son in New York City said in a court filing Wednesday that the agent who shot him never identified himself before he ran up to the car, smashed one of its windows, then fired several shots into the vehicle.

The account by lawyers for Oscar Belgal contrasted sharply with the version of events outlined by Department of Homeland Security officials. They have said officers opened fire only after Belgal smashed his car into two government vehicles and “accelerated toward other officers”.

A conviction on the possible charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon could mean up to 20 years in prison

A Texas prosecutor said he was considering felony assault charges for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who ran over a man following an attempted traffic stop and broke his leg in multiple places.

Sean Teare, district attorney for Harris county, said video of the incident in west Houston on Saturday morning, in which the officer’s unmarked SUV is seen veering into the man as he runs away across an empty parking lot, could support a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Top House Democrats question the ‘corrupt weaponization’ of federal government against Trump’s adversaries

Ilhan Omar’s Democratic colleagues have condemned federal agents’ search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home on Monday morning, describing it as “deeply disturbing” and emblematic of the Trump administration’s “corrupt weaponization” of the US government.

House Democratic leaders, including the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, party whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar, issued a joint statement excoriating the president for the search.

Trump and key allies have accused Omar of immigration fraud, and have called to expel her from the country

Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice and reports in the Associated Press and Fox News.

In a social media post later on Monday, Omar criticized the raid as an attempt by the Trump administration “to target political enemies and weaponize law enforcement” and said she would “not be silenced”.