ICE Detains Immigrant Spouses Illegally, Class Action Claims

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces a class action lawsuit alleging that the organization illegally targets immigrant spouses.

The named defendants in the class action include Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, Thomas Homan, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Brophy, Boston Field Office Director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Office, Yolanda Smith, Superintendent of Suffolk County House of Correction, Steven Tompkins, Sheriff of Suffolk County, and Donald Trump, President of the United States.

In 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) enacted regulations which allow immigrants to pursue legal immigration via citizenship of their spouses.

Immigrant spouses of citizens may follow a five-part process which allows the non-citizen to apply for permanent residency in the United States. This process allows non-citizens to apply for citizenship while minimizing the separation of families during the process.

The immigration class action lawsuit alleges that ICE is wrongfully detaining and removing immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens even though they are following proper procedures.

ICE allegedly violates the regulations put in place to protect immigrants and attempts to detain or remove non-citizen spouses. The complaint argues that while ICE lacks a lawful basis for their actions, they possess agents, jail cells, and a “mistaken belief it has unfettered authority,” thus giving them practical power of the situation.

The plaintiffs in the case have allegedly been detained into immigration custody, ordered to leave the country, or been subjected to GPS monitoring.

The class action lawsuit names President Donald Trump as a defendant, claiming that his comments of immigrants have created a hostile environment allowing ICE to illegally detain immigrants following the law.

“[President] Trump’s statements provide evidence of this [racial] animus. […] While campaigning, he labeled Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists; as President, he famously stated that Haitians ‘all have AIDS’ and expressed a desire to reduce immigration from ‘shithole’ countries such as Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations,” the class action lawsuit states. The plaintiffs argue that the president’s words and sentiments have emboldened ICE to detain immigrant spouses despite the lack of legal justification.

The plaintiffs seek to represent a Class of any U.S. citizen and his or her non-citizen spouse who has a final order of removal and has not departed the U.S. under that order; is the beneficiary of a pending or approved I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, filed by the U.S. citizen spouse; and is not “ineligible” for a provisional waiver under recent regulations.

The class action seeks the release of plaintiffs from ICE custody, an order enjoining ICE from further detaining plaintiffs, a declaration that ICE’s policies are contrary to the law, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

The plaintiffs are represented by Matthew R. Segal and Adriana Lafaille of American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts Inc.; Kathleen M. Gillespie, Attorney at Law; Kevin Prussia, Jonathan Cox, and Stephen Provazza of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

The ICE Immigration Class Action Lawsuit is Jimenez, et al. v. Nielsen, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-10225-MLW, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.