Tim Henderson, Stateline

Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem.

Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over and the Department of Homeland Security faces a continued funding shutdown that has reached 60 days.

That includes discussions about a proposed Arizona detention center where DHS agreed to scale back the number of prisoners by two-thirds and pay a city for lost taxes, and a proposed center in Maryland with a similar offer from the department. A lawsuit also is holding up work on that detention center. And in Georgia, a small city cut off the water supply to a proposed immigrant holding site....

GOP reversals in this year’s elections, especially in some urban and immigrant communities, are setting off alarm bells for Republicans using redistricting to try to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterms.

Redistricting plans demanded by President Donald Trump in states such as Texas and Missouri — meant to capitalize on his stronger showing among certain urban voters in the 2024 election — could backfire, as cities in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia returned to Democratic voting patterns in off-year elections this past November.

Experts see the shift as a sign of possible souring on the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, combined with disappointment in economic conditions....

As President Donald Trump sends mixed messages about immigration enforcement, ordering new raids on farms and hotels just days after saying he wouldn’t target those industries, he has hardly mentioned the industry that employs the most immigrant laborers: construction.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration is going after construction workers without legal status to meet its mass deportation goals — even as the country has a housing shortage and needs new homes built. A shortage of workers has delayed or prevented construction, causing billions of dollars in economic damage, according to a June report from the Home Builders Institute.

Almost a quarter of all immigrants without a college degree work in construction, a total of 2.2 million workers as of last month, before work site raids began in earnest. That’s more than the next three industries combined: restaurants (1.1 million), janitorial and other cleaning services (526,000) and landscaping (454,000), according to a Stateline analysis of federal Current Population Survey data provided by ipums.org at the University of Minnesota....

A list of 14 states, 298 counties and 200 cities deemed immigration sanctuaries by the Trump administration has disappeared from a government website but continues to hang over the heads of officials who face threats of losing federal funding.

“We were placed on a list with many other sheriffs across the nation for no clear reason and no clear cause,” said Sheriff Charles Blackwood of Orange County, North Carolina, a heavily Democratic county that nevertheless complies with a new state law requiring cooperation with immigration arrests.

“The list is gone. Am I satisfied that it was rectified? Yes. Am I satisfied that it’s over? No,” Blackwood said....

The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally.

Along with punishing the 14 states that use their own funds to cover immigrants who are here illegally, analysts say last-minute changes to the bill would make it all but impossible for states to continue helping some immigrants who are in the country legally, on humanitarian parole.

Under the bill, the federal government would slash funding to states that have expanded Medicaid and provide coverage to immigrants who are on humanitarian parole — immigrants who have received permission to temporarily enter the United States due to an emergency or urgent humanitarian reason....