Article Media
SAN FRANCISCO—For decades, the federal government has allowed immigrants who do not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk to remain out of custody during ongoing removal proceedings if they comply with their conditions of release. In May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly changed course and began unlawfully re-arresting and re-detaining people across Northern and Central California despite having no reason to believe they are dangerous or likely to flee.
Today, civil rights advocates filed a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unprecedented reversal of this longstanding policy, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint was filed on behalf of asylum seekers who live in the Bay Area.
“Our clients have followed the rules, gone to their immigration court hearings, and done everything they understood they needed to do to remain free while they seek relief in immigration court,” said Bree Bernwanger, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. “ICE is acting lawlessly, ripping them from their families, homes, and communities for no reason.”
Over the past few months, ICE reportedly has arrested and detained more than 100 immigrants who showed up for mandatory court hearings and supervision check-ins in Northern and Central California, even though their circumstances had not changed since the Department of Homeland Security initially determined they were eligible for conditional release.
The plaintiffs have strong ties to the community, jobs, and children. Although they followed the rules and did everything the government asked them to do to lawfully pursue their immigration cases, ICE has already torn some of them away from their families and sent them to squalid detention centers hundreds of miles from home, while the others imminently face the same fate.
“The government is acting with unchecked, arbitrary power. To arrest someone whose circumstances haven't changed, simply because it can, is the definition of lawlessness. We are in court to demand that the government follow its own rules and stop its use of compliance as a trap,” said Keker, Van Nest & Peters partner Erin Meyer.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit seeks to end the new federal policy and prohibit ICE from unlawfully re-arresting and re-detaining people the government has concluded were neither flight risks nor dangerous. The plaintiffs also seek to represent a class of individuals who have been harmed by the re-detention policy or are at future risk of harm.
"We are honored to work hand-in-hand with our clients in the fight against ICE’s illegal arrests in our community. Our clients are bravely stepping up not only for themselves, but for the thousands of people at risk of being targeted by this administration’s unjustified and immoral re-detention policy,” said Abby Sullivan Engen, immigrants’ rights co-directing attorney for Centro Legal de la Raza.
The ACLU Foundation, ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Centro Legal de la Raza, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP represent the plaintiffs.
A related federal class-action lawsuit filed last month challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful practice of arresting immigrants at Northern California courthouses and holding them for days in inhumane conditions inside ICE’s San Francisco field office.
Read the complaint.
