Ari Figueroa

Ariana Figueroa

[email protected] https://twitter.com/arianalfigueroa https://bsky.app/profile/arianalfigueroa.bsky.social

Ariana covers the nation's capital for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include immigration, congressional policy and legal challenges with a focus on how those policies impact the lives of immigrants and migrants coming to the U.S.

Before joining States Newsroom, Ariana covered public health and chemical policy on Capitol Hill for E&E News. As a Florida native, she's worked for the Miami Herald and her hometown paper, the Tampa Bay Times. Her work has also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and NPR.

She is a graduate of the University of Florida.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement reverses course, says it hasn’t purchased facility in Lebanon
National

Fentanyl seizures plummeted as Trump administration shifted focus to immigration

Aug 21, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — Fentanyl seizures decreased by 39% during the first year of the second Trump administration after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shifted the Department of Homeland Security’s criminal investigations arm to conducting immigration enforcement, according to a report government...
Demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House on Dec. 8, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump ordered the 123-year-old East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden leveled to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
National

US Supreme Court allows $400M Trump ballroom project to proceed

Aug 21, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump can continue building a White House ballroom for now, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday, reversing a federal judge's order that barred above-ground construction on the grounds of the former East Wing. The one-page order...
Members of the media set up outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's expected arrival on April 1, 2026 in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments to determine if Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship is constitutional. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
National

Legal groups ask court to restore block on Trump order on birthright citizenship

Aug 12, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union has petitioned a federal court in New Hampshire to reaffirm a ruling that found President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order unconstitutional, after the president renewed his attempts to redefine American citizenship despite...
President Donald Trump on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026 signed two new executive orders on birthright citizenship. In this photo, Trump addresses the nation from the East Room of the White House on July 16, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Saul Loeb/Pool - Getty Images)
National

Trump again tries to curb birthright citizenship, following Supreme Court loss

Aug 06, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders in his second attempt to deny citizenship to babies born to noncitizens, following the Supreme Court’s defeat this summer of an earlier order to redefine birthright citizenship. Trump said...
Haitians living in Brooklyn learn to use a whistle to blow if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrive in their neighborhood during an Immigrant Resource Fair and Know Your Rights Event in an area of Brooklyn known as "Little Haiti" on July 28, 2026, in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
National

Some Haitians targeted for ankle monitors by ICE as they face threat of mass deportation

Aug 07, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — Even before Haitian immigrants in Ohio officially lost their Temporary Protected Status, the Department of Homeland Security required dozens of them to report to immigration appointments and accept ankle monitors, according to their attorneys and local advocates. The...
Migrants wait through the night on May 10, 2023, in a dust storm, on land between the Rio Grande and the U.S.-Mexico border wall, hoping they will be processed by immigration authorities before the expiration of Title 42, a public health order used to expel migrants. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux/Source NM)
National

Small Texas law firm run by Trump ally wins contract for legal aid to immigrant kids

Aug 05, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services plans to award a $150 million contract to a small Texas firm — with no specialty in immigration law and run by a former Trump official — to provide legal services...
MIAMI, FLORIDA - JUNE 06: Pedestrians walk through the streets of the Little Haiti neighborhood on June 06, 2025 in Miami, Florida. U.S. President Donald Trump declared that, starting Monday, foreign nationals from 12 countries, which included Haiti, would be restricted from entry to the United States, and he imposed partial restrictions on another seven nations. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
National

TPS for up to 350,000 Haitians officially ends as judge applies Supreme Court order

Aug 05, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — A federal judge lifted a stay Wednesday on the termination of temporary protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in order to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the Trump administration to...
A 10-year-old Honduran immigrant who came into the United States as an unaccompanied minor carries her baby cousin on April 25, 2021, after reuniting with extended family in Sellersburg, Indiana. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
National

Legal services contract expires, and unaccompanied immigrant children face deportation

Aug 03, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — More than 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children Monday lost their legal representation because the Trump administration has not entered into a new agreement to take over their legal services after it let a longstanding contract with a nonprofit expire...
The hallway to immigration court in the Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis Thursday, April 9, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
National

Key legal resource for immigrant kids to expire with federal contract, advocates say

Jul 31, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — Bryan Chavez knows that having access to legal representation as an unaccompanied minor can be a lifeline. In 2017, immigration officials separated him from his mother and brother at the southern border, as they were caught up in...
Tractor trailers sit parked in a row at a truck stop in Bloomsbury, N.J. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
National

Trump looks to veterans to fill trucking jobs after booting immigrants from industry

Jul 30, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced an initiative Thursday for veterans to quickly obtain commercial driver’s licenses, as the administration attempts to fill vacancies in the industry after pausing license renewals for foreign-born truck drivers. “The radical left wants more...
Demonstrators chant and hold signs outside U.S. Supreme Court on April 29, 2026 in Washington, D.C. The court heard arguments challenging the termination of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
National

Attempt to halt imminent deportations of Haitians and Syrians blocked in US Senate

Jul 29, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — U.S. Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen Wednesday tried to advance in the Senate a bill that would create a legal pathway for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status. However, his request for unanimous consent, a way to expedite...
A traveler looks at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents as they walk around the end of the line at Terminal E at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on March 24, 2026 in Houston, Texas. The travel disruptions continue as hundreds of TSA agents quit or work without pay during a partial government shutdown. U.S. President Donald Trump said ICE agents will be deployed to U.S. airports on Monday, with border czar Tom Homan in charge of the effort. (Photo by Antranik Tavitian/Getty Images)
National

TSA shares passengers’ personal information with immigration enforcement, documents show

Jul 29, 2026
Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has for more than a year used personal information airline passengers provide to the Transportation Security Administration for immigration enforcement, according to documents obtained by a government watchdog group. The documents, collected by the government...