The American Civil Liberties Union and Covington & Burling LLP filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of nine passengers on a domestic Delta Air Lines flight who were subjected to suspicionless detention and identification checks. The case was settled in July 2019, with the government agreeing to measures that would prevent such unlawful detention and identification checks from happening again.

On the night of October 10, 2012, after playing basketball with friends in his neighborhood of Nogales, Mexico, 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was walking home alone when he was shot approximately 10 times through the border fence by a United States Border Patrol agent. Virtually all of the bullets that struck Jose Antonio entered his body from behind. He died on the sidewalk, in a pool of blood, only a few blocks from his home.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Human Rights First, and Covington & Burling LLP filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers fleeing persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin.