On October 29, 2015, a federal appeals court affirmed and expanded its prior ruling that immigrants in prolonged detention receive a bond hearing. In Rodriguez v. Robbins, a class-action lawsuit , the court upheld an order requiring bond hearings for detainees locked up six months or longer while they fight their deportation cases. The ruling stands to benefit thousands of immigration detainees across the Ninth Circuit, where an estimated 25% of immigrant detainees are held every year.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered a preliminary injunction that puts an immediate halt to the government's policy of locking up mothers and children from Central America – all of whom have been found to have legitimate asylum claims – in order to send a message to other migrants that they should not come to the U.S.

On the night of October 20, 2010, Angel Escobar and Jorge Sarmiento were in their beds in their small, two-bedroom apartment in the Clairmont complex in Nashville. Several roommates and friends were in other rooms. The doors and windows were all shut and locked. Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door and voices shouting "Police!" and "Policia!" When no one answered, the agents tried to force the door open. Scared, occupants hid. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began hitting objects against the bedroom windows, trying to break in. Without a search warrant and without consent, the ICE agents eventually knocked in the front door and shattered a window, shouting racial slurs and storming into the bedrooms, holding guns to some people's heads.

After a long legal battle the ACLU, on behalf of plaintiffs in Lopez Valenzuela v. Maricopa County prevailed by blocking further implementation of a law that for years did not allow judges to even consider bail for criminal defendants who were suspected of having "entered or remained in the United States illegally," and which applied to most state felony charges in Arizona, including relatively minor crimes such as shoplifting and possessing a phony ID. As a result of Proposition 100, which amended the state constitution, state courts were required to jail countless individuals who posed no risk of flight or danger to others.