"The Visitor" Grapples with U.S. Immigration Policy

WASHINGTON — Today, both parties in Genalo v. G.M. filed a joint stipulation asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss the case as moot following a pardon granted by New York Governor Hochul that eliminated the basis for Mr. G.M.’s deportation and detention. At the request of both sides, the Supreme Court dismissed the case, thereby cancelling upcoming arguments. The Second Circuit ruling requiring due process protections for prolonged detention will remain in place. Mr. G.M. is a lawful permanent resident who was held in ICE detention for 21 months without a bond hearing. His now-moot case challenged his prolonged immigration detention without meaningful due process. The American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union, MacArthur Justice Center, and Hecker Fink LLP are co-counsel in this case. “This is a great outcome for our client who no longer faces the threat of deportation and future immigration detention,” said Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the ACLU. “The Second Circuit reached the correct decision in recognizing that prolonged immigration detention cannot continue without due process, and that decision will remain in place. We will continue to defend our Constitution’s limits on immigration detention and will keep up the fight against Trump administration’s extreme, unprecedented, and lawless positions.” "We are heartened that our client will not be separated from his family," said Amy Belsher, supervising attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "The Second Circuit made abundantly clear that immigrants are entitled to due process, and we're gratified that their ruling will protect all those in the Second Circuit from prolonged detention." "Mr. G.M. spent 21 months locked away by ICE, separated from his family and community, without any consideration of whether he actually posed a danger or a flight risk. The Second Circuit saw that for what it was: a violation of due process," said Amit Jain, Counsel for the Supreme Court and Appellate Program at the MacArthur Justice Center. "This is a victory for Mr. G.M., and we will continue to fight alongside anyone, regardless of immigration status, who experiences such grave violations of due process." The administration’s position in Genalo v. G.M. drew cross-ideological opposition with 11 amicus briefs filed in total, including from former Republican senior government officials, members of Congress, and a former federal judge. In an amicus brief supporting G.M., they wrote that in their prior government roles they had “never asserted, nor ever heard the Government argue to this Court,” that a noncitizen detained under this law has no fundamental liberty interest. Although Genalo v. G.M will no longer proceed before the Supreme Court, the Trump administration’s efforts to expand mandatory detention and deny bond hearings to people who are immigrants, including longtime residents with deep ties to their families and communities, continues. Similar cases could make their way to the Supreme Court and will be met with forceful defense of due process. The joint stipulation is available here.

RICHMOND, Va.— Another federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s new policy subjecting millions of immigrants to mandatory detention without access to bond hearings. The Fourth Circuit is now the ninth federal appeals courts to find the policy unlawful, along with hundreds of district courts. The ruling arose from habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of Oscar Lopez Garcia and Juan Jose Rivera by their respective immigration counsel, Benach Pitney Reilly LLP and Ceartas Solutions. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia, and Murray Osorio PLLC joined the legal team representing petitioners in the government’s consolidated appeal. The case is Lopez Garcia v. Guadian. Last year, the Trump administration adopted a new radical reinterpretation of longstanding immigration laws and declared that anyone who entered the country without inspection must be detained without access to bond. For decades prior, people in removal proceedings who were detained by the government have generally had the right to seek release by an immigration judge. Among those who have been affected by the administration’s radical reinterpretation are people eligible for legal status, even those with long-pending immigration applications who have been waiting years due to administrative backlogs. The following is reaction to today’s ruling: “The courts have resoundingly rejected the administration’s cruel policy and its blatant disrespect for the rule of law,” said My Khanh Ngo, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We are thrilled for our clients and their families.” “The government cannot rewrite immigration law to serve this administration's anti-immigrant agenda by detaining people en masse, and today’s ruling again makes that crystal clear,” said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney with the ACLU of Virginia. “The Fourth Circuit’s decision is an important victory for both Virginians and for our civil rights and civil liberties nationwide.” “The Court has it right: ‘Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country’s history... Those shameful and abhorrent past detentions were limited in scope in comparison to’ what the Government asked for in this case. We are thrilled that the Court declined to expand mandatory detention to millions of people,” said Sarah Pitney, partner at Benach Pitney Reilly LLP and counsel for Mr. Lopez Garcia. “I have seen over and over again the devastating impact that the detention of a mother or father has on their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens,” said Sarnata Reynolds, founding attorney at Ceartas Solutions. “Today’s decision restores a basic safeguard: the government cannot imprison members of our communities throughout their immigration cases without giving them a meaningful chance to seek release.” The ruling is here.

CONCORD, N.H. — Legal groups that secured a June Supreme Court victory in Trump v. Barbara on behalf of babies who would have been denied citizenship under a failed Trump executive order filed new motions in the case today. The latest filings aim to protect people subjected to the president’s new executive order, which was signed in early August and again targets birthright citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund successfully argued the Barbara case. On Aug. 11, they asked a New Hampshire federal court, where the Barbara lawsuit was first filed, to make it unquestionably clear that the citizenship of babies covered by that class-action lawsuit is protected despite the new executive order. In their new filings, they are asking the court to certify a new class given the latest executive order. In its June ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause puts “the question of citizenship ‘once and forever [to] rest.’” The following are comments on today’s filings: “The Trump administration continues to threaten birthright citizenship, even after its definitive loss at the Supreme Court,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel. “We will never stop fighting to protect this fundamental constitutional principle.” “The Constitution and the Supreme Court were exceedingly clear: Citizenship is a constitutional right given to all children born in America and any attempt to restrict that right is illegal,” said Amia Trigg, deputy director of litigation at the Legal Defense Fund. “Regardless of race, color, or ancestry, birthright citizenship protects children that are born here. And the president's latest attempt to rescind that protection is just another example of an egregious overreach by the executive branch.” “Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is yet another attack on the rule of law,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus. “The Trump administration is ignoring the needs of everyday Americans to target immigrant communities. We’re fighting in court to ensure all our rights are protected and stop this administration’s unlawful attempt to ignore the Constitution and Supreme Court.” “Our latest motions demand accountability for Trump’s dangerous policies,” said Tianna Mays, legal director at Democracy Defenders Fund. “This administration cannot unlawfully strip the rights of babies and ignore the Constitution in order to achieve its political goals. We won’t let that stand, and we’ll continue our fight in court.” SangYeob Kim, director of the ACLU-NH Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “Birthright citizenship is the law of the land — as it has been for more than 150 years and as the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed once again just a few months ago. Cruel attacks on this core constitutional right must not be allowed to stand.” “The president may keep signing unlawful executive orders, but the Supreme Court could not have been more clear when it ruled that neither the president nor Congress can end birthright citizenship,” said ACLU of Maine Executive Director Molly Curren Rowles. “We’ll continue defending the Constitution and the core principles reflected in the 14th Amendment: that with very few clear exceptions, every baby born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen.” “Despite a clear ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court just weeks ago, the Trump administration is still trying to deprive babies born in the United States of their constitutional rights,” said Carol Rose, executive director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “We cannot tolerate this brazen act of lawlessness. No matter how many times President Trump tries to deny it, birthright citizenship is here to stay.” Read the motions here.

BOISE – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Idaho, Stoel Rives, and Cooley LLP filed an opposition brief today on behalf of their clients, urging a federal court to allow a lawsuit challenging the violent mass detention of hundreds of Latino people for an immigration dragnet at a family horse-racing event in Wilder, Idaho to proceed. The lawsuit, Rodriguez et al. v. Porter et al., was filed earlier this year on behalf of three Latino families and a proposed class of people who were at La Catedral Arena on October 19, 2025, when more than 200 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers descended on an otherwise peaceful family event. Law enforcement arrived in armored trucks and a helicopter with flashbang grenades and guns drawn and detained approximately 400 spectators – including U.S. citizens and children – for four hours of detention in inhumane conditions before subjecting everyone to suspicionless immigration interrogations. In their motions to dismiss, defendants continue to characterize the operation as a routine execution of warrants for five people accused of non-violent unlicensed gambling. The ACLU’s brief filed today makes clear that hundreds of heavily-armed officers detaining hundreds of people with no connection to the gambling allegations – and prolonging their detention to investigate everyone's immigration status – was anything but routine. “Our clients are still living with the physical and emotional scars from that day, and yet the defendants continue to try to rewrite what happened,” said Allison Frankel, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project. “Warrants for five people accused of unlicensed gambling do not give police a blank check to round up hundreds of people, hold families at gunpoint, or target people based on their perceived ethnicity. We know what happened at La Catedral, and we’re going to keep fighting to hold those responsible accountable and make clear that law enforcement is not above the law.” Juana Rodriguez, one of the lead plaintiffs, is a U.S. citizen who was at the racetrack with her 3-year-old son. After being violently rounded up with hundreds of other families, Rodriguez was placed in zip ties and detained for several hours without food or water. Law enforcement instructed her toddler to hold onto her pocket, which they had turned inside out, while Rodriguez remained zip tied and unable to comfort her son as he cried out for water. "The cruelty that occurred in Wilder is a tragic example of a government operating with reckless violence and unrestricted power," said Paul Carlos Southwick, legal director for the ACLU of Idaho. "The human cost of this operation is unacceptable. Law enforcement must answer for the large-scale civil rights abuses that took place so we can ensure this never happens again.” The lawsuit alleges that federal, state and local law enforcement used the criminal warrants as a cover to conduct a sweeping immigration dragnet targeting an event where they knew the attendees would be predominantly Latino. The complaint centrally claims that these federal, state and local actors conspired to deprive those detained of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable detentions, and their right to equal protection regardless of ethnicity. The complaint is brought under laws created after the Civil War to prevent racialized government violence. The conspiracy claims provide a path to hold federal actors accountable for civil rights violations. The brief is available here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/rodriguez-et-al-v-porter-et-al?document=Plaintiffs-Opposition-to-Defendants-Motions-to-Dismiss