Twenty-two people, including a U.S. citizen from Chicago, subjected to unlawful arrests and detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the early weeks of the second Trump administration, are asking a federal court to demand the release of two people still detained and additional remedies to avoid future unlawful arrests. The motion filed last Thursday in Chicago also seeks to hold ICE accountable for multiple violations of a 2022 federal court settlement.
“On January 26, when my husband was coming back from buying tamales for the family, he was arrested. Since that day my family has been facing a lot of challenges … we have been living in a crisis,” said Yolanda Orozco, wife of plaintiff Abel Orozco who was arrested by ICE without a warrant near his home in Lyons, Illinois. “All that I ask is for my husband’s release. Is it a crime to get up everyday early in the morning to support your family?”
“My father has been here for over 27 years, he owns his own company, he cuts down trees for a living, he has never been arrested in his entire life,” said Eduardo Orozco, Abel Orozco’s son. “He just goes to work and he comes back to his family. He is loving, he is caring, he is responsible, he is someone to look up to, and he is an honest man and he should not have been arrested. I just want to ask the government to please look into who he is so they can do what’s right.
The National Immigrant Justice Center and ACLU of Illinois filed a motion to enforce the Castañon Nava settlement in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of U.S. citizen Julio Noriega, who ICE officers detained for more than 10 hours in late January and then released to the street without documenting the arrest; nine individuals including Mr. Orozco who have been subject to warrantless and often violent arrests in their neighborhoods or vehicles; and 12 people who were arrested in a single incident at a restaurant in Liberty, Missouri, without warrants or probable cause.
"Last week ICE issued a press release bragging about tens of thousands of arrests the administration has carried out since January, making claims without evidence about who they swept into immigration detention while bragging that thousands of these arrests were so-called ‘collateral’ arrests, meaning ICE officers had no warrant or probable cause when they handcuffed people and took them into detention. Based on the dozens of cases NIJC and our partners have screened from Chicago and throughout the Midwest, we condemn the administration’s claims that those detained as a result of ICE’s illegal tactics pose any danger to our communities,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at National Immigrant Justice Center. “Most are people who have built lives here over decades, have families, many own businesses and like most of us, were going about their lives trying to do their best when they became collateral damage of the Trump administration’s inhumane and illegal mass deportation agenda."
The motion to enforce demands the release of unlawfully detained plaintiffs without bond, along with other remedial measures to ensure ICE officers and other agencies assigned to conduct immigration enforcement comply with the settlement. Because of the number and scale of violations which occurred in just a few weeks after Trump took office and the likelihood that violations will continue, the plaintiffs also ask the court to produce a report of all immigration arrests since January 20, 2025, and to provide weekly reports going forward of all immigration arrests.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers and community organizers who have been supporting families impacted by ICE arrests held a press conference Monday to discuss the court action and demand accountability for the Trump administration’s ongoing unlawful attacks on immigrant communities.
“It is clear that internal ICE policy has little impact in reducing the harm this institution causes in our communities. Not only do we, as community members, need to be ‘well educated’ in the Constitution but we cannot even rely on ICE internal policies to curtail their disregard for people’s most basic rights,” said Xanat Sobrevilla, organizer with the Organized Communities Against Deportations.
“The Trump Administration once again shows itself to be lawless and reckless,” said Rebecca Glenberg, Chief Supervising Litigation Counsel: First Amendment at the ACLU of Illinois. “They blithely violate the U.S. Constitution and Congressionally enacted laws, ignore court-approved settlement agreement and trample on people’s legal rights to serve their dangerous and harmful agenda. The people named in this motion deserve protection from the authoritarian and monarchial impulses of this administration.”
“Even before the start of the administration, [Trump’s “border czar” Tom] Homan and Trump declared war on many members of my community, my friends, my community,” said Noemi Avelar, who spoke on behalf of U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez. “They have declared war on our neighbors, and just in 60 days of the administration we have seen the impact of the war: Federal agents empowered to violate our civil rights, raids that target immigrants without criminal records, the detention of veterans and citizens, deportation of children with cancer, and the division of families who are now in pain and scared. At the same time we have shown this administration that we know our rights, we are united and organized, we will continue to fight to protect and bring families together again.”
“As this administration attempts to follow through on its threats of ‘mass deportation,’ immigrant communities and allies must reaffirm the rights and protections that all people in the United States enjoy under the US Constitution,” said Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, one of the named organizational plaintiffs in Castañon Nava. “Whenever this administration violates these basic rights, we must call them to account.”
Read the motion to enforce Castañon Nava.
Watch a recording of the press conference.
