The Trump administration once again escalated its anti-immigrant agenda this week. It will continue its illegal policy of deporting migrants awaiting asylum, and is now conducting 24-hour surveillance of immigrants to increase arrests. Thanks to a just-released inspector general report, we also learned new details about how the administration carried out Trump’s cruel family separations at the border.

A court ruled that the Trump administration will be able to continue to enforce its illegal “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Wall Street Journal: “A federal appeals court for now agreed to narrow the effect of its recent ruling that blocked a Trump administration policy of returning immigrants at the southern U.S. border to Mexico while their requests for asylum are considered. The San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an order issued Wednesday, said it ruled correctly last week that the administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is unlawful. But the court acknowledged the ‘intense and active controversy’ over nationwide injunctions against administration policies and said it would limit its ruling for now to the two border states within its jurisdiction: Arizona and California. That means the Trump administration could continue enforcing the policy in the border states of New Mexico and Texas for months while it mounts a Supreme Court appeal.”

The Trump administration began 24-hour surveillance and plans to deploy hundreds of officers in unmarked cars to arrest “as many undocumented immigrants as possible.”

New York Times: “Intensifying its enforcement in so-called sanctuary cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun 24-hour-a-day surveillance operations around the homes and workplaces of undocumented immigrants. The agency plans to deploy hundreds of additional officers in unmarked cars in the coming weeks to increase arrests in cities where local law enforcement agencies do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.”

An inspector general report released today shows HHS officials failed to act on repeated staff warnings about Trump’s cruel family separations — and were told not to put controversial information into writing.

CNN: “Senior Department of Health and Human Services officials failed to act on repeated warnings from staff about family separations at the US-Mexico border, and staff members were advised not to put controversial information in writing, according to a HHS inspector general report released Thursday.”