“A “do not disturb” sign hangs on the door of an office that houses the Nebraska Immigration Legal Assistance Hotline. Hotline coordinator Stacy Marquez answers questions in English and Spanish. (Jessica Wade/Nebraska Public Media)
By Jessica Wade, Nebraska Public Media
Inside the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement, the phone rarely stops ringing.
The nonprofit near 42nd and Center Streets in Omaha is home to the Nebraska Immigration Legal Assistance Hotline, a resource for immigrants and refugees in search of answers.
“What we’re hearing more often is loved ones or the actual detainee calling in seeking any answer or seeking an attorney to help them with their next court date,” said hotline coordinator Stacy Marquez.
Similar questions can be heard across the nation as the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration enforcement policies reverberate through communities big and small.
Thousands of federal immigration officers have deployed to fulfill President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Sweeping changes to the immigration system have halted the U.S. refugee resettlement program, paused visa applications from 75 countries, and sparked conflict with protesters, including in Minnesota, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents weeks apart.
Nebraska is not insulated from the shock waves. The state saw a 329% year-over-year increase in ICE arrests from 2024 to 2025, when Trump’s second term began.
In the first 10 months of 2024, federal agents detained 291 people in Nebraska. In the same 2025 time frame, the number grew to 1,246. That’s according to federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, an online data set compiled by a group of lawyers and academics working through the University of California Berkley’s Law School.
As detainments increase, so do calls to the legal assistance hotline. To meet the need, an independent hotline was created specifically for detainees and their loved ones. Hotline employees take down the callers’ information and add them to a waitlist for an attorney consultation.
Roxana Cortes-Mills is a legal director with the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement (CIRA). She said the fear within Nebraska’s immigrant and refugee community is reflected in calls for help.
“Something that we realized very quickly was that the spaces that used to be safe, where people felt like they could congregate and they felt safe going to get information, are no longer safe spaces,” Cortes-Mills said.
Nebraska ICE arrests: Navigating a changing system
Over the past several weeks, the ACLU has filed up to a dozen lawsuits on behalf of immigrants held in a Nebraska detention center. The organization’s clients include a Schuyler woman, a 27-year-old DACA recipient who was recently released, and 10-year Omaha resident Jorge Calderon Rivera.
Calderon is a Salvadorian citizen and father of three who has been in the United States since 2016. He has no criminal record and is being represented by the ACLU and CIRA.
His first interaction with ICE agents came in mid-January during a traffic stop in Omaha by agents in an unmarked car, according to the ACLU.
In a statement translated and shared through the ACLU of Nebraska, Calderon said he is a God-fearing man who misses his wife and three children, including his daughter, who has special needs.
“I am asking for an opportunity to show what I have already shown for almost 10 years. That I am happy to attend my court appointments and contribute to my community,” Calderon said.
His situation isn’t unique. A November report from nonpartisan data collection nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that, like Calderon, more than 73% of all detainees nationwide were never convicted of a criminal offense.
In 2024, around 8%, or 24, of those detained in Nebraska had no criminal record, 87% had been convicted of a crime, and nearly 5% had a criminal charge, but had not been convicted.
Last year, 196, or 16%, of people detained in Nebraska had no criminal record, 69% had a criminal record, and 15% had a criminal charge, but had not been convicted of a crime.
“People are being apprehended and they’re being detained indefinitely, unless the family can gather enough resources or find an agency willing to help them with a habeas case and immigration proceedings,” Cortes-Mills said. “I would say that Jorge’s case is becoming the norm.”
ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment, nor did they respond to emailed questions from Nebraska Public Media regarding current and future operations in the state.
Lawsuits similar to those filed by the ACLU in Nebraska are playing out in courts across the nation as detainees seek bond hearings. Last year, the Trump Administration overturned the longstanding practice that allowed immigration detainees who had resided in the U.S. for more than two years to be eligible for a bond determination hearing in front of an immigration judge.
Interim guidance issued by ICE last summer said the agency had “revised its legal position on detention and release authorities” and categorized every undocumented immigrant as an “arriving alien.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, agreed with ICE in a decision last fall that has led to a drastic expansion of mandatory detention.
Grant Friedman is a staff attorney with the ACLU of Nebraska representing clients detained by ICE at the McCook Detention Center. He argues that immigration law is not exempt from constitutional protections, including rights to a bond hearing.
“I don’t want to stoke the worry,” Friedman said, “but I do want to acknowledge that this is drastically different from even the first Trump administration, and so we are having to adjust and figure out how to make this work.”
Immigration law is complex, and under the Trump Administration it has become more complicated, Cortes-Mills said.
“I know that it may seem hard to believe under the current climate, but the U.S. is still a country of laws,” Cortes-Mills said. “We still have a U.S. Constitution that has survived so many years, so many presidents, and we as lawyers hope to continue to use it to protect our clients in court, because that’s the place where we can protect them.”
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