Court Cases

On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe, a case challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Syrian immigrants living and working legally in the United States. The case could affect the future of the entire TPS program, which has been a target of the Trump administration and its openly racist mass deportation agenda. TPS is a program established by Congress in 1990 to protect individuals who cannot safely return to their home country due to war, natural disaster, or other emergencies. TPS holders are mothers, fathers, workers, and contributing members of their communities. They rely on this humanitarian protection regime for safety. The Supreme Court’s ruling will impact not only Syrian TPS holders but will also affect whether the Trump administration can move forward with its actions seeking to strip legal status from many others. There are 1.3 million individuals from 17 countries designated for TPS. At the time the Supreme Court will be hearing this case, the Trump administration has terminated TPS for 13 countries—despite ongoing wars and undisputed humanitarian crises. Alongside our co-counsel the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Muslim Advocates, and Van Der Hout LLP, the ACLU of Northern California represents seven Syrian nationals with TPS or pending applications in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe, a class action lawsuit originally filed in October 2025. Cancelling TPS designation for Syria would subject nearly 6,100 Syrian TPS holders, along with 800 Syrians with pending applications, to immigrant detention and possible deportation to an unsafe country. The plaintiffs argue that the DHS Secretary does not have the legal authority to unilaterally override the TPS statute enacted by Congress, and that it is the role of the judiciary to review the government’s legally dubious actions.

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.

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.

National TPS Alliance v. Noem (NTPSA II) is a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s unlawful efforts to dismantle the statutorily mandated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, which provides humanitarian protection for people who cannot safely return to their home countries.

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.