Court Cases

We filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of re-arresting and re-detaining immigrants the government previously had released from custody after concluding they were neither dangerous nor a flight risk.

We filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's policy of arresting immigrants when they appear for court in Northern California and holding them in inhumane conditions inside the San Francisco ICE field office.

National TPS Alliance v. Noem is a legal challenge to the Trump administration's early termination of Temporary Protected Status for Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

On February 19, 2025, the National TPS Alliance and seven Venezuelan TPS holders sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to challenge the vacatur of the previously ordered extension of TPS for Venezuela, and the subsequent termination. On March 20, 2025, the plaintiffs amended the complaint to also challenge the vacatur of the full TPS extension for 500,000 Haitians, with four Haitian TPS holders joining as plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are represented by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

The ACLUs of California and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP sued the Dept. of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol for violating the U.S. Constitution and federal law by indiscriminately stopping, detaining, and arresting people of color regardless of their actual immigration status or individual circumstances.

A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking to compel production of grievance logs filed at ICE detention centers.

On April 27, 2023, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Californians sued the state prison system for illegally discriminating against people suspected of being born outside the U.S. The lawsuit claims that the California prison system unlawfully discriminates against hundreds of people each year by referring people in custody to ICE for detention and deportation after they have served their time in prison, contributing to a dual system of justice that targets immigrants, refugees, and anyone that prison officials unilaterally, and often incorrectly, assume was born outside the U.S.

Nine people detained at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, Calif., and the Golden State Annex in McFarland, Calif., filed a class action lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and GEO Group, the for-profit prison company that owns and operates the detention centers. They alleged that they and other detained people faced retaliation, including threats of solitary confinement and bans on family visitation, for engaging in a collective hunger strike to demand their release from immigration custody and the shutdown of both facilities.

A California Public Records Act lawsuit seeking to compel production of documents and information reflecting collaboration between the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and ICE.