Immigrants' Rights

Four Washington, D.C. community members and the national immigration organization CASA sued the Trump administration today on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly-situated individuals, alleging that the federal government has engaged in a pattern of illegal immigration arrests since August.

This ruling is a vital reminder that due process is not optional. Expanding expedited removal would have exposed thousands to potential wrongful deportation, without even the chance to make their case.

On September 25, 2025, four Washington, D.C. community members and the national immigration organization CASA sued the Trump administration to end its policy and practice of making immigration arrests in D.C. without a warrant and without probable cause. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, American Civil Liberties Union, Amica Center for Immigrants’ Rights, CASA, National Immigration Project, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the law firm of Covington & Burling. Since August, federal officers from multiple agencies have made hundreds of immigration arrests in the District. The officers frequently patrol and set up checkpoints in neighborhoods where a large number of immigrants live and stop and arrest people as they go about their daily lives. The law typically requires an agent to have a warrant when arresting someone for an immigration violation. One exception to the warrant requirement is when the agent has probable cause both that a person is in the United States in violation of the law and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. According to the lawsuit, the Trump administration has a policy and practice of making immigration arrests without a warrant and without an individualized determination of probable cause that the person is in the country unlawfully and that the person is a flight risk. Each plaintiff in the case was arrested, detained, and released. The lawsuit was filed as a class action. The plaintiffs seek a court ruling to prevent the government from conducting such unlawful arrests against them and others in the future.

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.

We filed this lawsuit alleging that the Alien Enemies Act had no application in this situation and violated the immigration statutes, which are explicit that they provide “the sole and exclusive procedure” by which the government may determine whether to remove an individual.