LCCRSF and advocates have filed a class action lawsuit against ICE for their policy of arresting people when they show up to the courthouse and preventing them from pursuing their immigration cases.  

The lawsuit represents 12 noncitizens who were arrested at court hearings, all of whom had intended to request protection or other legal status in the United States. Instead, immigration judges unexpectedly dismissed their cases at the request of government attorneys, and they were promptly arrested and detained by ICE officers waiting outside.  

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia the lawsuit was brought by the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), Democracy Forward, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services (RAICES), along with organizational plaintiffs Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (Immigrant ARC) and American Gateways, which provide legal services to people who now face potential arrest and deportation when they attend a court hearing to comply with their immigration proceedings.

“These directives forsake any notion of immigration courts as a neutral forum, weaponizing them into a trap for immigrants who show up in reliance on the American promise of a fair process before a judge, only to be met instead with handcuffs and shunted into a fast-track deportation process controlled by ICE agents,” said Jordan Wells, LCCRSF Immigrant Justice Program Director. 

Alarmingly, even when a judge declines to dismiss a case, DHS has instructed ICE officers to disregard judges’ authority and statutory law and arrest the individuals anyway.  

The noncitizens represented from the lawsuit range from people who have resided in the United States for years with their families to more recent immigrants fleeing persecution, including persecution faced for LGBTQIA+ identities and political speech.  

Read the complaint here.