Garro Pinchi et al. v. Albarran et al.

When immigrants arrive in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security determines if they are eligible for release from custody based on whether the government concludes they are dangerous or a flight risk. If they’re not, they can remain free while their immigration case proceeds if they comply with their conditions of release.

For decades, this was how the system worked.

Then in May 2025, ICE abruptly changed the policy and started arresting immigrants at their mandatory court hearings and ICE check-in appointments, even though agents did not have any new information indicating people were a danger to the community or likely to flee.   

The ACLU Foundation, ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Centro Legal de la Raza, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP filed a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s reversal of the longstanding policy, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

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.