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.

Gonzalez v. ICE is a proposed class action lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"), brought by two U.S. citizens—Gerardo Gonzalez and Simon Chinivizyan—who were subjected to ICE detainers while in custody in Los Angeles County. The lawsuit challenges ICE's practice of lodging detainers—and thereby causing people's extended detention—without a probable cause determination, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. 

In June 2013, a class action lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of nine Mexican nationals and three immigrant advocacy organizations who challenged deceptive tactics used by Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to convince the plaintiffs to sign their own expulsion orders. All of the plaintiffs would have had strong claims to remain in the United States had they gone before an immigration judge instead of being pressured to choose "voluntary departure," one of the many ways that the government can swiftly expel someone from the country without a hearing.

The ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU, along with the Jones Day and Stacy Tolchin law firms, filed a lawsuit in July 2014 challenging a federal government program used to deny or delay thousands of law-abiding people - many of them from Muslim-majority countries - citizenship, green cards, and visas on counterterrorism grounds. The program is illegal and unconstitutional, was adopted without any congressional approval or public comment, and violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, as the aspiring Americans whose applications are denied under the program are not told why or given a meaningful opportunity to clear their names. In response to the lawsuit, the government promptly acted upon the applications of all of the plaintiffs, approving three of them, and the case was resolved.