Advocacy & Litigation Issues

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and partners filed a lawsuit challenging an interim final rule that allows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to send people seeking asylum directly to immigration court without first assessing their legal claims in an affirmative asylum interview.

The National Immigrant Justice Center joined the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies in filing an amended complaint in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant et al. v. Biden et al., challenging the Biden administration’s asylum ban which took effect in May 2023.

Eighteen Chicago residents who were brutalized by federal agents during a military-style immigration raid filed legal claims seeking accountability and justice. The claims, filed May 12, 2026, against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, detail the shocking experiences of residents at the hands of federal agents who stormed the building, broke down doors without warrants, and rounded up adults and children alike at gunpoint in the middle of the night.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges the February 6, 2026, Interim Final Rule (IFR) titled Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is set to take effect on March 9, 2026.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved a settlement on February 8, 2022, in the class action lawsuit, Castañon Nava et al. v. Dep’t of Homeland Security et al., No. 18-cv-3757-RRP (N.D. Ill.).

Garcia Ramirez et al. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement et al., is a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for transferring unaccompanied minors who reach their 18th birthdays to ICE adult detention facilities without considering less restrictive placements.

Civil Action No. 25-01370 (AHA) This lawsuit seeks to restore a critical national program that provided federal funding for legal […]

D.D.C. Case 1:25-cv-02279 This class action lawsuit seeks to end collusion between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department […]

Gonzalez v. ICE challenges various U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer practices, including the agency’s reliance on error-ridden databases to generate requests, known as detainers, for local law enforcement to hold individuals to be transferred into immigration custody.

(D.D.C. 1:25-cv-00791) E.Q. v. DHS challenges the Trump Administration’s new Mandatory Bars Rule, which imposes additional barriers to protection for […]

(DDC 1:25-cv-00306) Raices v. Mullin challenges the Trump administration’s January 2025 proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum at the […]

This case was formerly known as B.L.R. v. DHS - In December 2023, the National Immigrant Justice Center, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, and Winston & Strawn LLP, filed a class action against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for unreasonably delaying the initial adjudication of U visa applications.