LOCALIZE IT: How to cover detention of U.S. troops' family members under Trump immigration crackdown

EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:

President Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, an Associated Press investigation found.

More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. At least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.

Immediate family members of U.S. troops have generally not been targeted for immigration enforcement due to the longstanding bipartisan consensus that doing so undermines military preparedness. But a federal policy, implemented in April 2025, states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”

The AP found troops' family members are now being routinely detained for months as they seek to adjust their legal status through the policies available to service members' close relatives, even as the military continues to recruit by advertising immigration benefits for enlistees' families. Though the U.S. is at war in Iran, service members have had to take leave of their duties, including delaying deployment, to take care of their young children after their spouses were detained.

Military veterans and their family members, who have also received immigration benefits, are also being detained and deported.

There are likely many more people affected than those that come up in AP's coverage making this a good opportunity for local reporting.

READ AP’S COVERAGE

AP Exclusive: Trump’s immigration crackdown has detained more than 50 military spouses and parents

Takeaways from AP’s review of military families detained under Trump’s immigration crackdown

FINDING MILITARY MEMBERS WITH DETAINED FAMILY MEMBERS

— Military service members often post about detained family members on social media or on fundraising sites like GoFundMe and using key term searches and Google alerts can help you learn of emerging cases.

— You can also often find new cases by searching court filings, such as habeas petitions. While habeas petitions generally must be viewed in-person in federal court, it is possible to find many through Habeas Dockets, a project run by the Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative which scans and uploads the petitions. You can search for key terms like “active-duty”, “military parole-in-place” or “veteran” to identify possible cases of military service members’ families being detained.

— Many cases of detention or deportation of military family members will not appear in habeas filings or other court documents, meaning the only way to find cases in your area may be from local immigration attorneys, nonprofits providing legal support or groups that support veterans and military families. Often, they are the first to learn of new cases and can help make introductions and convince families to speak with media. DHS is not providing data on these situations, so it's worth reporting even one case in your area.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR USING PACER AT COURTHOUSE TERMINALS

— There are 94 such courts with computers that the public can use to search an unfiltered version of PACER. Journalists can pull up filings from immigrant detainees by selecting “463 (Habeas Corpus - Alien Detainee)” from the “Nature of Suit” dropdown, then either read through them on the spot or print out the documents, typically at a cost of 10 cents per page.

— It isn’t just immigrant detainees who file habeas corpus cases. To ensure you’re looking at cases filed by immigrants, select “463 (Habeas Corpus - Alien Detainee)” from the “Nature of Suit” menu. There may be more under codes like “460 (Deportation)” or “530 (Habeas Corpus (General))” but most will be “463.”

— Some states have more than one federal district court. The case filings will only be available at the district court where it was filed. For example, Iowa has two federal district courts, the Northern District of Iowa and the Southern District of Iowa. Records filed in the Northern District will only be accessible at the Northern District terminals.

— Filings in immigration-related habeas corpus cases often contain detainees’ Alien Number, or A-Number, which can be helpful for requesting interviews or connecting with them through online platforms used for people behind bars.

— Massachusetts is an exception in that the federal district court there allows habeas corpus records to go online 30 days after filing.

CONSIDER THESE REPORTING THREADS

— Some people are being detained in or near military bases. What role are local military installations and officials playing in assisting federal immigration authorities with detaining U.S. troops' family members?

— To what extent are congressional leaders and elected officials, including GOP officials who may be generally supportive of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, advocating publicly or behind-the-scenes for military family members?

— How are military recruiters in your area advertising immigration benefits to enlistees and their families? Check out their social media profiles and presentations to see how they are framing the protections that military service affords to immediate family members. You can often find their Instagram profiles by searching for profiles that start with an abbreviation of the military ranks common to recruiters, such as sergeant “SGT”, staff sergeant “SSG" or sergeant first class “SFC."

— How has the detention of a family member disrupted a military service member's life? Were they scheduled for deployment? Was the detained family member listed as a caretaker? Has the service member had to take leave of their duties to deal with the legal matters surrounding a loved one's detention?

— When speaking with military service members whose relatives have been detained, ask them what they were told by recruiters about the immigration benefits and protections available to their families after they enlisted.

—Also see if the detained individual qualified for any of the immigration benefits and protections available for military service members and their families. Ask families and their attorneys about whether they had applied for military parole-in-place, one of the policies available to relatives of service members that allows them to remain in the country to adjust their legal status. The administration is detaining families even when they have already received parole or have pending applications.

— What support, if any, did military officials provide to a service member who had a family member detained? Many service members whose family members were detained have said they struggled to get support or access to legal resources from military officials and institutions.

— Make sure to ask the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for comment on a detained family members' immigration and criminal history (before you reach out, it's useful to have the person's date of birth and nationality to ensure DHS can provide a proper response). But also apply due diligence — if DHS says the person had a removal order, that does not necessarily mean they had to be detained or deported. Some individuals may have received the order as a child after not being notified of a court hearing and are in the process of seeking to re-open their cases. Make sure to report out the full context by following up with families and their attorneys about how DHS characterizes cases.

Localize It is a resource produced regularly by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to the Local News Success team at localizeit@ap.org. View guides published in the last 30 days here.

Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, whose wife Cristy has been detained by immigration authorities, poses for a photo at home in El Paso, Texas, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Romero)

WANTAGH, N.Y. (AP) — An amateur historian has stumbled upon a provocative clue to the enduring mystery of what became of a notorious pirate who raided a royal Indian treasure ship centuries ago, implicating a co-conspirator whose name is familiar to many New Yorkers.

James Bailey, who five years ago made headlines after unearthing ancient coins believed to be linked to English pirate Capt. Henry Every, now says that colonial-era documents suggest the “King of the Pirates” and his violent crew got an assist from Thomas Jones, the namesake of Jones Beach, New York’s most visited state park after Niagara Falls.

“You have millions of visitors and generations of New Yorkers going to this beach,” Bailey said. “Nobody knew that he was actually a major player in arguably the biggest heist in the history of piracy.”

Since his big find, Bailey has pored through documents to dig even deeper into the bloody 1695 raid of the Ganj-i-Sawai on the Red Sea and the mystery of what happened to Every.

The pirate crew is said to have tortured, killed and raped those aboard the royal ship, sparking global outrage and what is considered the first worldwide manhunt. Some were caught and executed, but many others, including Every, were never heard from again and are believed to have scattered to Europe and the American colonies.

Documents, including depositions from Every’s associates, suggest Jones was recruited to serve as a “wheelman,” helping the pirates evade authorities after they made off with tens of millions of dollars' worth of gold and silver, according to Bailey.

Other documents show that New York’s governor, charged by the British crown to crack down on piracy, investigated Jones years later after he’d remade himself as the wealthy proprietor of a whaling operation on the barrier beach on Long Island that now bears his name.

Bailey’s research, which he hopes to have published, sheds light on a part of Jones’ checkered past long alluded to but never quite fleshed out in local history books, says John Hanc, author of “Jones Beach: An Illustrated History,” which includes a chapter on Jones.

Born around 1665 in the then-kingdom of Ireland, Jones was a major in the English military before moving to the American colonies. He initially settled in Rhode Island before eventually moving to New York, where he became a prominent businessman and landowner. Jones owned thousands of acres of land on early Long Island, then just a rural expanse east of the rapidly growing New York City.

But rumors of how he’d initially made his fortune persisted long after his death in 1713. Before it was demolished in the early 1800s, his crumbling mansion was said to be haunted by ghosts and strange occurrences. Jones’ grave was repeatedly desecrated by robbers searching for buried treasure before it was relocated to a family burial plot behind a nearby church.

A family history published in 1906 by one of Jones’ descendants dismissed the pirate tales as “slander” and “improbable fictions.”

“People were disposed to cast slurs upon his memory, either for mischievousness, or a spirit of malice,” Thomas Floyd-Jones wrote. “These myths were cherished for over a century after his death, which ignorance and superstition did not fail to magnify.”

Hanc and other experts say it wasn’t too far-fetched for Jones to have at least dabbled in piracy.

After serving in the British military, Jones made a career as a privateer, or a seafarer authorized by the English crown to raid the commercial ships of its rivals during wartime, said Meagan Schulman, a Fordham University doctoral candidate who specializes in 17th century piracy and wasn’t involved in Bailey’s research.

But when the conflict ended, privateers like Jones lost their special status, she said. Those that continued the high seas raids were branded pirates.

“The reality was that privateers were pirates, just sponsored by a certain government or patron,” explained Schulman, who grew up going to Jones Beach. “So maybe the short answer is, yes. Jones can be called a pirate, by some people, but he probably did not ever see himself as one.”

After helping Every and his crew evade capture, the documents cited by Bailey show Jones briefly returned to Rhode Island.

Then in 1696, Jones’ father-in-law, Thomas Townsend, a wealthy New Yorker, gifted him and his wife a significant tract of land on Long Island’s south shore, property records show.

Bailey, who recently retired from Rhode Island's corrections department, posits that allowed Jones a fresh start, as authorities continued to scour pirate-friendly New England for Every and his accomplices.

On Long Island, Bailey says Jones built a homestead and raised a family, but his pirate past was never far behind.

Three years after the Ganj-i-Sawai heist, Richard Coote, New York's colonial governor, described how one of his efforts to root out piracy had led him to Jones.

Citing witness depositions, the governor wrote in 1698 that a certain “barrel of money” traveled from the city to Long Island, where it ended up at Jones’ house. But Jones, who the governor described as “formerly a pirate,” testified that he knew nothing about the barrel.

Bailey’s findings are compelling but shouldn’t be considered conclusive, cautions Richard Blakemore, maritime history professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom who also wasn’t involved with Bailey’s work. After all, he said, Thomas Jones is a fairly common name.

If anything, Jones’ possible ties to Every underscore how piracy provided “foundational and multi-generational wealth” for many of the prominent families in the Northeast, says Kevin McDonald, a history professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who wrote a book about colonial-era piracy but wasn’t involved in Bailey’s research.

“Popular images of pirates show them as outcasts, but many historians have argued the opposite, based on evidence like this,” agreed Blakemore. “It may surprise readers to find just how much early British colonies were both socially and economically connected to piracy.”

FILE - A recreational fisherman pulls a fluke out of the water as the sun dips beneath the horizon while fishing at Jones Beach State Park, Aug. 1, 2017, in Wantagh, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)

FILE - Amateur historian James Bailey uses a metal detector to scan for Colonial-era artifacts in a field, March 11, 2021, in Warwick, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

The gravestone of Thomas Jones in the cemetery behind Old Grace Church in Massapequa, N.Y., on Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)

FILE - A person walks by the water at Jones Beach in Wantagh, N.Y., May 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)