Court Cases

Federal law guarantees noncitizens fleeing persecution and torture in other nations the opportunity to seek protection in the United States, if they arrive here. It has prohibited the government from removing individuals to places where they face persecution and torture. But President Trump has attempted to wipe away these laws by fiat. On January 20, 2025, within hours of his inauguration, President Trump issued a proclamation, “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion,” that purports to prohibit noncitizens who have arrived in the United States from seeking asylum and instead to summarily expel them to countries where they face persecution and torture. The proclamation principally relies on Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), which authorizes the President to “suspend the entry” of noncitizens when their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” But this authority to “suspend entry” does not empower the President to expel people who have already entered the United States, much less to do so in violation of the protections and procedures Congress provided elsewhere in the same statute. We filed this lawsuit on February 3, 2025, together with the National ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, on behalf of three nonprofit organizations that provide legal services to refugees seeking asylum. The case asks the court to prohibit the government from implementing this Trump proclamation.

Immigrants have a right to legal representation in immigration proceedings, but do not have a right to government-appointed counsel. We filed this suit to challenge the failure to ensure compliance with constitutional requirements, federal law, and ICE’s own policies regarding access to counsel.

The ACLU-DC filed a lawsuit on behalf of five people in ICE detention facilities who are medically vulnerable to severe illness and death in the event of COVID-19 infection, demanding that they be given COVID-19 booster shots.

This is our fifth case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of expelling refugees without any of the protections required by the immigration laws, on the ground that they might have COVID-19 infections.

This case challenges the Trump administration’s policy of expelling refugees without any of the protections required by the immigration laws, on the ground that they might have COVID-19 infections.