Peaceful Protests

Peaceful Protestors Respond

To Deadly ICE Shooting

    WASHINGTON — (ACLU) -- 1/11/2026 --Peaceful protests and vigils kicked off the ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action July 10 to honor the lives lost at the hands of ICE, demand accountability, and make visible the human cost of this administration’s actions. The nonviolent, lawful, and community-led actions continued on Sunday, January 11, culminating in more than 1,000 events over the weekend. 

    ICE Out For Good is a broad, national coalition, including Indivisible, MoveOn Civic Action, the American Civil Liberties Union, Voto Latino, United We Dream, 50501, the Disappeared in America Campaign of the Not Above the Law coalition, and partner organizations across the country. All actions under the ICE Out For Good banner are grounded in moral witness, public accountability, and collective care. We remain committed to nonviolent organizing.

See coverage below from across the country on the first day of the ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action:

• The Guardian: More than 1,000 events planned in US after ICE shootings in Minneapolis and Portland

• USA Today: Where are ICE protests taking place this weekend? Here's what to know

• Axios: ICE and Border Patrol shootings spark hundreds of weekend vigils and protests

• CT Insider: Connecticut holds ICE protests Saturday in response to Renee Good shooting death

• Knoxville News Sentinel: Hundreds gather in Knoxville to protest ICE shooting in Minneapolis

• CBS Philadelphia: Philadelphia protesters want "ICE out for Good" after videos show agent killing woman in Minnesota

• ABC11: North Carolina cities join nationwide anti-ICE protests after Minneapolis, Portland shootings

• ABC7: ICE Out For Good rally in Sarasota

• FOX5: Virginia protest against ICE as new video of MN shooting emerges

• TCPalm: Group gathers in Stuart, Florida for 'ICE Out For Good' protest

• AZ Central: Renee Good Nicole shooting spurs nationwide 'ICE out for Good' protests

-------------------------------

Leaders from the partner organizations issued the following statements:

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

    “The shootings in Minneapolis and Portland weren’t the beginning of ICE’s cruelty, but they must be the end. Today, we saw communities across the country gather peacefully to mourn the lives lost at the hands of ICE and to demand accountability. These protests are further proof that public opposition to ICE and this administration’s abuses is growing by the minute. Whether it's by joining a protest, attending a know your rights training, or demanding that our Congresspeople stop funding these out-of-control agencies, Americans across the country are saying “NO. Not on our watch.”

– Deirdre Schifeling, Chief Political and Advocacy Officer, ACLU

INDIVISIBLE

    “Renee Nicole Good should be alive today. Her death has sparked grief and outrage across the country as the latest horrific incident in a mounting toll of enormous harm and horror caused by ICE. This weekend, people all over are coming together not just to mourn the lives lost to ICE violence, but to confront a pattern of harm that has torn families apart and terrorized our communities. We demand justice for Renee, ICE out of our communities, and action from our elected leaders. Enough is enough."

– Leah Greenberg, Co-Executive Director of Indivisible

POPULAR DEMOCRACY

    “Every person ICE has killed had a family, a community, and a life that mattered. Pouring billions of public dollars into a rogue enforcement agency that terrorizes our communities while denying people health care, housing, food security, and education is morally indefensible and profoundly reckless. This cruelty flows directly from the agenda of fear and punishment pushed by extremists like ​​Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, embraced and strengthened by the President himself. We demand accountability for the killing of Renee Nicole Good and for the countless lives lost at the hands of ICE. The lesson is clear: this violence will not stop until ICE is abolished.”

— DaMareo Cooper, Executive Director, Popular Democracy

50501

    "This weekend's actions are prompted most immediately by the tragic death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, and her murder at the hands of ICE is unspeakable. We will uplift her this weekend, and we will uplift all those in our communities whom ICE has targeted and brutalized, from Silverio Gonzales to Marimar Martinez to all of those people in marginalized communities whose names must not be forgotten. This is our moment. We must conjure the souls of our brave ancestors and remember we stand on the shoulders of giants."

– Sarah Parker, 50501 Spokesperson and Executive Director, Voices of Florida Fund

MOVEON CIVIC ACTION

    “For a full year, Trump’s masked agents have been abducting people off the streets, raiding schools, libraries, and churches. As ICE’s unnecessary, reckless, and escalatory deployment goes unchecked, the killing of civilians will only continue. None of us want to live in a country where federal agents with guns are lurking and inciting violence at schools and in our communities. This is why MoveOn members will be uniting once again this weekend in peaceful, nonviolent, powerful protests in stark contrast to the unrepentant, ruthless violence of this administration.”

– Katie Bethell, MoveOn Civic Action Executive Director

PUBLIC CITIZEN, NOT ABOVE THE LAW COALITION

    “Masked, power-hungry federal agents are treating the streets of America like the Wild West. The intimidation tactics, the deadly attacks against our communities and the brazen lawlessness by immigration enforcement must stop now. As ICE and border patrol agents commandeer neighborhoods, people in detention centers, in ICE custody or simply in their own personal vehicles fear for their lives. This militarization of immigration enforcement is endangering everyone. What’s more alarming is the Department of Homeland Security, the vice president and president of the United States are endorsing ICE and CBP’s violent behavior. The Trump Administration must stop ICE deployment now, we must deeply investigate this unjust killing, and the American people must file peacefully into the streets to resist this illegal, overreaching use of government power. We must stand together to effectively defend ourselves.”

– Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition which formed the Disappeared in America Campaign.

NDLON

    “We immigrants know what authoritarian violence is. Many of us come from countries where we had to endure the kind of hatred and terror we saw in Minneapolis. Many of us fled brutal regimes to seek survival here.”

    “We grieve for Renee Nicole Good and all the victims of this Administration's shameful and senseless brutality — the growing list of the dead and injured. But we are not just sorrowful. We are defiant. We, the people, will stand together against all efforts to dehumanize us, polarize us, terrorize us and kill us.”

    “They want to provoke us into responding to violence with violence, to meet hate with hate. They are desperate to justify their cruelty with ever more brutality.”

    “But we immigrants know how to confront authoritarianism. We will resist the government's attacks by building community, by documenting atrocities, by protesting nonviolently, by showing kindness and solidarity at all times. We will meet them in the streets, in the courts, at the day labor corners. We will meet them everywhere. And we will win.”

    “We are not afraid or discouraged. And we will not be defeated. The more we stand together as a community of determination and love, the harder it will be for them to divide and destroy us.”

– Pablo Alvarado, Co-Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network

THE WORKERS CIRCLE

    “The tragic killing of Renee Good — a U.S. citizen exercising her fundamental rights — by a federal ICE agent is not just a catastrophic loss for her family and community; it is a stark warning to all of us about where unchecked power leads. This administration’s expanding use of force against our neighbors erodes the very rights and safety that define who we are as a nation. As a Jewish organization, we know what unchecked power has done in the past. We must not let that take root here, today. Now, more than ever, we must demand transparency, accountability, and policies that protect human life, human dignity and civil liberties for everyone. Allowing federal forces to act without independent oversight undermines justice and threatens the safety of us all.”

– Ann Toback, CEO, The Workers Circle

UNITED WE DREAM

    “Using your first amendment rights to speak out and show up for your neighbors during the growing anti-immigrant violence in our cities should be a protected constitutional right, not a death sentence. This brutal killing is a horrifying reminder of the threat armed forces pose to our collective safety, especially at a time when local, state and federal officials have consistently called on the federal government to invest in the resources working families truly need —health care, housing, access to food— instead of indiscriminate terror in our communities. Billions poured into immigration raids for the sake of ripping apart communities in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis does nothing but lead to irreparable damage, violence and death. In 2025 alone, 32 people died in immigration detention. We demand an immediate end to this cruelty and for elected leaders at every level to speak out in defense of immigrant communities and our shared safety.”

– United We Dream

VOTO LATINO

    “Under Donald Trump’s leadership and Kristi Noem’s direction of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE has become more aggressive, more reckless, and more deadly — with 2025 marking its deadliest year in two decades. The killing of Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, is not an isolated failure but the predictable outcome of a political agenda that rewards force and dehumanization.”

    “Trump and Noem have normalized the erosion of constitutional rights, framing brutality as enforcement and accountability as weakness. Their rhetoric and policies have sent a clear message down the chain of command: push limits, ignore safeguards, and expect protection from consequences. This is not about partisan politics — it is about defending human life and the rule of law. We stand with Renee Nicole Good’s family and with communities nationwide to demand accountability and to stop the unchecked enforcement born of Trump and Noem’s leadership before more lives are lost.”

– Voto Latino

Due Process

ACLU Challenges Denial of

Due Process in Immigration Courts

Denying bond hearings violates rights, upends decades of precedent

    BOSTON – (ACLU) -- 9/24/2025 -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, together with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the ACLU of New Hampshire, the ACLU of Maine, the law firm Araujo and Fisher, the law firm Foley Hoag, and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court to challenge the widespread denial of bond hearings to people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    As the complaint demonstrates, this denial is a violation of statutory and constitutional rights, upending decades of settled law and established practice in immigration proceedings. As a result, thousands of people in Massachusetts will be denied due process.

    The complaint, filed Sept. 22, 2025, alleges that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice recently and abruptly began to misclassify people arrested by ICE inside the United States. DHS and DOJ are now systematically reclassifying these people from the statutory authority of 8 U.S.C. § 1226, which usually allows for the opportunity to request bond during removal proceedings, to the no-bond detention provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1225, which does not apply to people arrested in the interior of the United States and placed in removal proceedings.

    “All people in the United States are entitled to due process — without exception,” said Daniel McFadden, managing attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “When the government arrests any person inside the United States, it must be required to prove to a judge that there is an actual reason for the person’s detention. Our client and others like him have a constitutional and statutory right to receive a bond hearing for exactly that purpose. Yet the Trump administration is now ignoring that right and jailing people arbitrarily without a hearing. The Fifth Amendment says that no person can be deprived of liberty without due process of law. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that the promise of our Constitution remains a reality.”

    In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which established the current detention regime for people arrested and detained for civil immigration violations. Since then, people arrested inside the United States and placed in removal proceedings, regardless of whether they initially entered without permission, have been subject to 8 U.S.C. § 1226 and thus entitled to a bond hearing unless subject to certain criminal and national security exceptions.

    In late 2022, the Immigration Court in Tacoma, Washington began misclassifying § 1226 detainees arrested inside the United States as mandatory detainees under § 1225, solely because they initially entered the country without permission. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that this practice was likely illegal in April 2025 and ordered a bond hearing for a wrongfully detained litigant.

    Nevertheless, three months later, DHS adopted the Tacoma Immigration Court’s unlawful practice nationwide and began to ask immigration judges to deny bond hearings. Some immigration judges rejected this argument, but on September 5, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a precedential decision that purports to require all immigration judges to misclassify people in this manner. In the short time since, multiple federal courts have ruled that the BIA's decision is incorrect, but DHS and DOJ continue to misclassify people and unlawfully deny bond hearings.

    “Federal courts across the country, including here in Maine, have found the government’s attempt to deny bond hearings by misclassifying people under § 1225 to be unlawful,” said Max Brooks, an immigration attorney with the ACLU of Maine. "Millions of people who have been waiting for their day in court are now at risk of being jailed indefinitely over civil violations. We look forward to vindicating the rights of people in this situation with today’s class action lawsuit.”

    “ICE’s current refusal to provide bond hearings for detained clients violates due process and upends nearly 30 years of established practice,” said Annelise Araujo, founding principal and owner at Araujo & Fisher LLP. “The people impacted by this policy are neighbors, friends, and family members, living peacefully in the United States and making important contributions to our communities. Currently, the only recourse is to file individual habeas petitions for each detained client — a process that keeps people detained longer and stretches the resources of our courts. We’re proud to team with the ACLU to ask the court to protect their due process rights of our class members.”

    This case is brought on behalf of Jose Arnulfo Guerrero Orellana and a putative class of similarly situated individuals. Mr. Guerrero Orellana has been living in the United States for over a decade and is a devoted husband and father. He brings this case to vindicate his own right to a bond hearing — where an immigration judge can determine whether his detention is justified to protect the community or ensure his appearance in court — and that of thousands of other detainees in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire who will be denied the opportunity to seek release on bond under the new legal ruling adopted by the executive branch. The complaint alleges that the government's new policy violates constitutional and statutory due process rights and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

Immigration

Lawsuit Aims to Block 

Unconstitutional, Extreme 

Anti-Immigrant Law

    MIAMI — (ACLU) — 4/6/2025 — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Americans for Immigrant Justice filed a federal lawsuit April 2 challenging Florida’s new extreme anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 4C (SB 4C), which authorizes state and local law enforcement to imprison people based on their manner of entering the country — powers the Constitution reserves exclusively to the federal government.

    The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is brought on behalf of the Farmworker Association of Florida, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and individual plaintiffs — including longtime Florida residents with pending federal immigration applications and with U.S. citizen family members who rely on their care.

    “Florida’s SB 4C is not just unconstitutional — it’s cruel and dangerous,” said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. “This law strips power from the federal government and hands it to state officers with no immigration training or authority, threatening to tear families apart and detain people who have every legal right to be here. Our communities deserve safety, dignity, and due process — not politically motivated attacks.”

    Signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on February 13, SB 4C immediately criminalized a new set of immigration-related offenses under state law, punishing individuals who are 18 or older with mandatory incarceration for “illegal entry” or “illegal reentry” into the state of Florida — even if they are pursuing federal immigration relief which allows them to lawfully remain in the country.

    “Florida has already started to arrest and prosecute family members, friends, neighbors, and community members,” said Hannah Steinberg, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We are asking the court to immediately stop Florida from enforcing this unconstitutional law to prevent further devastation to communities across the state.”

    The law follows statutes from other states that federal courts have unanimously blocked, and it directly conflicts with the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and Commerce Clause. The lawsuit asks the court to immediately halt enforcement of the unconstitutional law.

“Our plaintiffs include a mother applying for a U visa as a victim of crime, a mother of four caring for a child with disabilities, and farmworkers who regularly travel between Florida and other states to harvest our food,” said Amy Godshall, legal fellow and immigrants' rights attorney at the ACLU of Florida. “This law not only violates the Constitution — it threatens the safety and well-being of people who have lived in our communities for decades.”

    The complaint details how SB 4C forces state law enforcement to make complex federal immigration determinations, authorizes the detention of people who pose no threat, and criminalizes individuals whom the federal government may later grant asylum, visas, or permanent status. The law makes no exceptions for people seeking humanitarian protection or people with pending applications for immigration relief.

    “Florida's recently passed SB 4C, is an attempt to bypass federal immigration oversight and empower state law enforcement officials to enforce immigration policies,” said Paul R. Chavez, litigation and advocacy director of Americans for Immigrant Justice. “This law could lead to the detention of individuals who pose no threat to our communities, and the denial of basic civil rights protections to immigrants. SB 4C is unconstitutional and may instill fear in the state, potentially driving many immigrants and their families into hiding. We proudly stand in solidarity with our immigrant community to advance and protect all our civil rights.”

    The legal complaint can be found here.

Immigration

Series Highlights Harms of

Immigration Policies, How

Communities Are Fighting Back

    NEW YORK – (ACLU) -- 2/22/2025 – The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a new storytelling series documenting the harms of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda and how communities are fighting back. The multimedia series uplifts the voices of people nationwide – family members of undocumented people, teachers, activists, and more – and elevates the need for balanced and humane immigration policies. The project comes just thirty days after President Trump took office and reiterated his pledge to enact the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. 

    For weeks, the ACLU has collected stories anonymously from community members across the country to illustrate how peoples’ lives have been impacted by these policies, shaped their daily experiences, their sense of security, and the well-being of their families. “My community is being broken into two parts and we are looking [to] friends, co-workers, and more because we are all going back in time; it’s messing with people’s perceptions of humans and who we are and how far we have come to protect our rights,” one individual shared, while others have highlighted the sense of fear they feel for themselves and their families.

    The blog, photo, and video series will continue to run in the weeks and months ahead with the goal of humanizing immigration issues. The ACLU’s investment in telling human interest stories aims to counter the Trump administration’s widespread effort to amplify misleading and damaging stories painting immigrants with one dehumanizing brush.

    The project also comes on the heels of several legal actions from the ACLU and partners challenging Trump’s unlawful immigration policies. In just four weeks, the organization has filed five lawsuits against measures that would tear apart communities nationwide, from eliminating birthright citizenship, to fast-tracking deportations without due process.

    “As the ACLU and its 54 affiliates nationwide combat the Trump administration’s harmful policies in the courts, in Congress, and in our communities, we know that our fight isn’t just about policy – it's about people,” said Anu Joshi, National Campaigns Director for Immigration at the ACLU. “The individuals and stories at the center of this series are a powerful reminder of what’s at stake in the fight for immigrants’ rights.”

    The full storytelling series is available here: https://www.aclu.org/campaigns-initiatives/documenting-stories-of-cruelty-fear-and-resilience

Discrimination

SPLC Demands Action to Address

Surge of Hate Crimes 

October Designated as Hate Crimes Awareness Month

    WASHINGTON — (SPLC)  — 9/29/2024 — The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently responded to the release of the FBI 2023 Hate Crime Statistics Act report by, once again, calling for Congress to expand community-based, prevention efforts and make hate crime reporting mandatory by law enforcement agencies across the country. The SPLC issued its statement on 9/24/24.

    The 2023 report documented 11,862 total hate crimes, including significant increases in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim crimes. Hate crime reporting came from 16,009 participating law enforcement agencies — out of more than 18,800 federal state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies nationwide — reversing a five-year trend of declining police participation. 

    “One hate crime is too many in our country,” SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang said. “While today’s report shows a welcome uptick in the number of law enforcement agencies that are participating in the FBI’s data collection, the picture is still incomplete. Far too many agencies, including many in the Deep South that serve large populations, do not report credible data, which puts many people — especially Black, Latinx, Asian, Jewish, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities — at risk."

 The SPLC has designated October as Hate Crimes Awareness Month to bring more attention to the prevalence of hate crimes and press for urgent action. This annual effort is prompting national conversation and action to prevent hate and foster an inclusive democracy where each of us feels safe and welcome in our communities. 

    “At a time when bigotry, conspiracy theories and disinformation are being mainstreamed and are influencing individuals to engage in hate crimes, we need an accurate understanding of where bias-motivated crime is most prevalent so that we can create coordinated responses that keep communities safe. And, to truly stamp out hate, those responses must incorporate strategies that prevent those susceptible to being influenced by the fringes of society from moving down the dark path of radicalization,” Huang said. 

Legal Challenge

  Amicus Briefs Challenge 

Policy Denying Asylum Seekers

Safety, Legal Rights

    (SPLC) - 11/27/2020 - Amnesty International USA, the Association of Pro Bono Counsel, Refugees International, and a group of immigration law professors have filed amicus briefs in a case challenging the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which has forced over 60,000 asylum seekers into precarious, life-threatening situations in Mexico and deprived them of access to legal assistance and other tools needed to meaningfully present their asylum claims.

   Some of the amicus briefs, which were filed in support of the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, include first-hand accounts of how this policy has made it nearly impossible for asylum seekers to obtain legal assistance. Other amicus briefs provide a historical perspective on the Refugee Act, which was intended to ensure uniform treatment of asylum seekers regardless of the place where they apply for asylum and explain why individuals subject to the Remain in Mexico policy are in DHS custody.

“MPP dispenses with critical safeguards meant to ensure that asylum-seekers are not returned to danger; results in the transfer of asylum-seekers to Mexico, a country where they face a real risk of serious harm; and exposes asylum-seekers to ‘chain’ refoulement,” reads the brief filed by Amnesty International USA. As a result, “MPP violates the United States’ domestic and international human rights commitments and should be enjoined.”

Last month immigration advocates filed Immigrant Defenders Law Center, et al. v.Wolf, et al., which challenges the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The lawsuit seeks to block the continued implementation of the policy, facilitate the return of individual asylum-seeking plaintiffs so they can pursue their claims from inside the United States, and allow legal service groups to continue their work on behalf of asylum seekers.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of organizational plaintiffs, Jewish Family Service of San Diego and Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and eight individual asylum-seeking plaintiffs. They are represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Innovation Law Lab, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, with pro bono partner Arnold & Porter LLP.

Coalition Condemns White House Action

   WASHINGTON — 1/27/2017 — Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after President Trump signed an executive action discriminating against Muslims and banning refugees:
   “President Trump rode a wave of bigotry into the White House and ushered in a new era of hostility against American Muslims. He campaigned as a demagogue and is now governing as a demagogue.
  "Banning or profiling people of faith is ineffective for our national security; it fans flames of bigotry and makes us all less safe.
   "Trump’s recent actions to build a wall around the country, to strike fear in the heart of immigrants, and now toward banning refugees and religious minorities make his America look more like a police state than the republic we truly are.
   "Our republic is stronger and more dynamic because of its refugees, immigrants, and religious diversity. But this administration is governing out of baseless fear and our nation’s immigrants and people of faith are paying a dear price.
   "The administration should immediately cancel these actions, stop the bullying, and govern in a way that’s inclusive and actually makes us all safer.”
  The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights represents a diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States.
   The organization works toward an America as good as its ideals. See: www.civilrights.org.

Lawsuit Challenges U.S. Deportation Policy

   WASHINGTON — 8/24/2014 - The American Civil Liberties Union, American Immigration Council, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and National Immigration Law Center today sued the federal government to challenge its policies denying a fair deportation process to mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States seeking safety.
    The groups filed the case on behalf of mothers and children locked up at an isolated detention center in Artesia, New Mexico — hours from the nearest major metropolitan area. The complaint charges the Obama administration with enacting a new strong-arm policy to ensure rapid deportations by holding these mothers and their children to a nearly insurmountable and erroneous standard to prove their asylum claims, and by placing countless hurdles in front of them.
    "These mothers and their children have sought refuge in the United States after fleeing for their lives from threats of death and violence in their home countries," said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "U.S. law guarantees them a fair opportunity to seek asylum. Yet, the government's policy violates that basic law and core American values — we do not send people who are seeking asylum back into harm's way. We should not sacrifice fairness for speed in life-or-death situations."
   According to the complaint, the Obama administration is violating long-established constitutional and statutory law by enacting policies that have:

• Categorically prejudged asylum cases with a "detain-and-deport" policy, regardless of individual circumstances.
• Drastically restricted communication with the outside world for the women and children held at the remote detention center, including communication with attorneys. If women got to make phone calls at all, they were cut off after three minutes when consulting with their attorneys. This makes it impossible to prepare for a hearing or get legal help. 
• Given virtually no notice to detainees of critically important interviews used to determine the outcome of asylum requests. Mothers have no time to prepare, are rushed through their interviews, are cut off by officials throughout the process, and are forced to answer traumatic questions, including detailing instances of rape, while their children are listening.
• Led to the intimidation and coercion of the women and children by immigration officers, including being screamed at for wanting to see a lawyer.

   "Fast-tracking the deportations of women and children from immigration detention is an assault on due process. There is no way that justice can be served when so many people are being rushed through the system without any real opportunity to assert claims for relief. What we are seeing in Artesia is nothing less than a sham process that values expediency over justice," said Melissa Crow, legal director of the American Immigration Council.
    The plaintiffs include:

• A Honduran mother who fled repeated death threats in her home country to seek asylum in the United States with her two young children. The children's father was killed by a violent gang that then sent the mother and her children continuous death threats. When she went to the police they told her that they could not do anything to help her. It is common knowledge where she lived that the police are afraid of the gang and will do nothing to stop it.
• A mother who fled El Salvador with her two children because of threats by the gang that controls the area where they lived. The gang stalked her 12-year-old child every time he left the house and threatened kidnapping. She fears that if the family returns to El Salvador, the gang will kill her son. Some police officers are known to be corrupt and influenced by gangs. The mother says she knows of people who have been killed by gang members after reporting them to police.
• A mother who fled El Salvador with her 10-month-old son after rival gangs threatened to kill her and her baby. One gang tried to force the mother to become an informant on the activities of another gang, and when she refused, told her she had 48 hours to leave or be killed.

    "The women and children detained in Artesia have endured brutal murders of loved ones, rapes, death threats, and similar atrocities that no mother or child ever should have to endure, and our government is herding them through the asylum process like cattle," said Trina Realmuto, an attorney at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. "The deportation-mill in Artesia lacks even the most basic protections, like notice and the opportunity to be heard, that form the cornerstone of due process in this country."
    The lawsuit, M.S.P.C. v. Johnson, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Co-counsel in this case includes the law firms of Jenner & Block, and Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP; and the ACLU of New Mexico, ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, and ACLU of the Nation's Capital.
    "Any mother will do whatever it takes to make sure her children are safe from harm's way," said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center. "Our plaintiffs are no different: they have fled their homes to protect their children, only to find that the U.S. deportation system is intent upon placing them back in the dangerous situations they left. We are filing this lawsuit today to ensure that each mother is able to have her fair day in court, and that we are not sending children and their mothers back to violence or their deaths."
   The complaint is available at: aclu.org/immigrants-rights/mspc-v-johnson-complaint