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The Council filed a lawsuit to close the immigration courts and ensure due process.
March 23, 2020
This urgent letter from over 100 organizations expressing deep concern about the need for remote legal access and representation in immigration court and detention during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This request seeks information that will enhance the publicā€™s understanding of steps ICE has taken to protect detained individuals from an outbreak of COVID-19.
March 17, 2020
The letter notes public health concerns related to COVID-19 for individuals in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's custody in El Paso, the need for the immediate release of individuals who are at high risk, and recommending steps to mitigate the crisis for this population.

In December 2019, the National Archives approved a schedule for destruction of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records which slates numerous categories of documents addressing...

Publication Date: 
January 31, 2020

The American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association submitted an amicus brief inĀ Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Wolf, a case filed by the American...

This lawsuit seeks to uncover information about the governmentā€™s troubling new practice of employing U.S. Custom and Border Protection officers to screen asylum seekers.
September 25, 2019
This statement shares our knowledge about these problems and inform the Subcommittee of these systemic human rights and due process violations. We hope that our perspective provides insight context for this important hearing.
September 4, 2019
The administrative complaint filed with government oversight agencies highlights a systematic failure to provide adequate medical care to children in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. This violates CBPā€™s own internal guidance and extensive medical guidelines.
This FOIA lawsuit sought information from the EOIR on the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP), which it runs jointly with ICE and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
January 14, 2022

New leaked photos of Border Patrol stations in Yuma, Arizona show Customs and Border Protectionā€™s (CBP) inhumane treatment of people apprehended at the borderā€” revealing that years of overcrowded...

January 12, 2022

Written by Caroline Walters and Kate Melloy GoettelĀ  This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two related immigration cases. Each asks whether certain noncitizens are entitled to bond...

December 17, 2021

Immigration detention and enforcement in the United States under the first year of the Biden administration has been a mixture of improvements and setbacks. The Trump administration implemented...

November 10, 2021

By Tsion Gurmu, Legal Manager and Staff Attorney at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Emily Creighton, Legal Director of Transparency The public watched in horror this September as U.S....

November 3, 2021

In a landmark court decision, Geo Groupā€”one of the largest private prison companies that own and/or manage dozens of immigrant detention centers across the United Statesā€”was found to have violated...

October 29, 2021

By Emma Winger, Staff Attorney, American Immigration Council, and Eunice Cho, Sr. Staff Attorney, ACLU National Prison Project ā€œBen G.ā€ is a 35-year-old veterinarian from Nicaragua who fled to the...

October 21, 2021

In a split decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on October 20 lifted a lower courtā€™s protections for medically vulnerable people locked up in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE...

October 19, 2021

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been known to improperly subject individuals in its custody to solitary confinement and has destroyed solitary confinement records in violation...

October 13, 2021

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) need to establish clear guidance for when ICE should release someone from detention. So far, the Biden...

September 9, 2021

Proposed legislation in California that would further limit the stateā€™s involvement in immigration detention has made progress toward becoming law. The VISION Act would prevent transfers to U.S....

February 19, 2020
A federal court ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to overhaul the way the agency detains people in its custody in the Tucson Sector. The court found that the conditions in CBP holding cells, especially those that preclude sleep over several nights, are presumptively punitive and violate the U.S. Constitution.
January 23, 2020
During the course of the trial, a federal judge heard from qualified experts who testified on the inadequate medical care and severe conditions inside CBP detention centers.
January 13, 2020
The trial in a legal challenge to the horrific conditions in U.S. Border Patrol's short-term detention facilities across the Tucson sector, filed in June 2015 by immigration groups, begins on Monday, Jan. 13 at the U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona.
August 21, 2019
he Trump administration announced that it will publish a new regulation on Friday that allows for the indefinite detention of immigrant children. The rule will terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, which currently requires that the government hold children in the least restrictive setting and release them as quickly as possible, generally within 20 days.
June 22, 2019
Newly obtained documents from the Department of Health and Human Services released today by immigrant rights groups and The Houston Chronicle show that migrant children continued to be separated from their parents at the border nearly one year after the end of the ā€œzero toleranceā€ policy.
May 2, 2019
The American Immigration Council, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and The American Civil Liberties Union, filed a proposed amended complaint in federal court today in order to challenge the Trump administrationā€™s new policy that categorically denies bond hearings to asylum seekers. The policy, announced April 16 by Attorney General William Barr, targets asylum seekers whom immigration officers previously determined have a ā€œcredible fearā€ of persecution or torture if returned to the places they fled.
April 29, 2019
Newly released government records reveal that the Department of Homeland Security monitored protest preparations across the United States and internationally in June 2018, as communities organized to oppose the Trump administrationā€™s separation of children and parents at the southern border. The discovery follows other recent revelations that the government has been secretly monitoring activists, journalists, and immigrant rights defenders.
April 5, 2019
In a groundbreaking decision, a federal judge in Seattle dealt a blow to the governmentā€™s campaign to deter and obstruct asylum seekers applying for protection in the United States. Judge Marsha Pechman ordered the government to provide certain individuals with bona fide asylum claims either a bond hearing before an immigration judge within seven days of their request or to release them from detention.
December 13, 2018
A federal district court in Seattle, Washington issued an order rejecting the governmentā€™s arguments that recent asylum seekers who enter the United States without immigration status are not entitled to constitutional protections.
December 5, 2018
A report on immigration detention examines the United Statesā€™ complex, sprawling network of facilities used to detain immigrants. The report, ā€œThe Landscape of Immigration Detention in the United States,ā€ reveals that detained individuals were commonly held in facilities operated by private entities and located in remote areas, far away from basic community support structures and legal advocacy networks.
December 13, 2023

The Biden administration signaled on December 12 that it is willing to make disastrousā€”and permanentā€”changes to asylum and immigration policy to obtain temporary military aid for Ukraine, Israel,...

September 28, 2023

A recent Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision bars certain recently arrived noncitizens from becoming lawful permanent residents. In Matter of Cabrera-Fernandez, the BIA held that the...

September 8, 2023

ā€œThere should be no private prisons, period, none, period. And we are working to close all of them.ā€ Those are the words of President Joe Biden in April 2021, when he was called out by immigrant...

August 17, 2023

On Thanksgiving Day 2017, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested Kamyar Samimiā€”a lawful permanent resident with a decade-old conviction for drug possessionā€”and sent him...

July 21, 2023

ā€œI never thought Iā€™d say thereā€™s anything worse than ICE custody, but this is it.ā€ Thatā€™s an immigration attorney in San Diego talking to CNN about the shelter facilities run by U.S. Customs and...

July 14, 2023

ā€œIf I spoke too loudly, solitary. If I climbed on top of a table to get a guardā€™s attention, solitary. If I had suicidal thoughts, solitary. When the guards would tease me about being deported...

Publication Date: 
July 11, 2023
This fact sheet provides an overview of the wide range of programs that provide alternatives to detention (ATDs) and run the gamut from no governmental intervention to extensive surveillance and...
June 15, 2023

Florida officials think the federal government must detain everyone ā€“ or virtually everyone ā€“ who arrives at the U.S.-Mexico border without a visa. And it is using the courts to try to make that...

June 9, 2023

An internal investigation into the death of a medically vulnerable eight-year-old girl after over a week in Border Patrol custody continues to reveal shocking negligence on the part of medical...

April 26, 2023

Last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the launch of CeBONDS, a new system people can use to pay bonds and secure the release of individuals in immigration detention....

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