The Issue

Summary

On October 14, 2025, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, alongside co-counsel - Public Counsel, La Raza Centro Legal (LRCL), and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) - sued the Trump administration to protect immigrant survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and other serious crimes who have been unlawfully arrested, imprisoned, and deported by the Trump administration.

The individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit are immigrant survivors of these crimes who have been imprisoned or deported by ICE under new Trump administration policies, challenged by this lawsuit, despite having formal authorization to remain in the United States or approvable pending applications for lawful immigration status. Organizational plaintiffs in the suit include the Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC), LRCL, CHIRLA, and California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice ("CCIJ"), all of whom do the courageous work of counseling and representing survivors of domestic abuse, human trafficking, and crime.

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This class action lawsuit, Immigration Center for Women and Children et. al. v. Noem et. al. (ICWC v. Noem), challenges U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") policy guidance issued in early 2025, which has allowed, for the first time in decades, the arrest, detention, and deportation of immigrant survivors of these violent crimes as a routine matter, without regard for the many protections Congress put in place for them. The lawsuit also challenges two unlawful practices that ICE implemented pursuant to this policy guidance. First, ICE now regularly imprisons and deports noncitizen survivors of human trafficking and crime who are lawfully in the United States pursuant to a grant of "deferred action" - formal authorization to remain lawfully in the United States for a set period of time - treating its enforcement actions as a de facto revocation of deferred action status without prior notice or opportunity to be heard. Second, ICE now routinely deports survivors of trafficking and crime who have pending applications for the U and T visas that Congress created specifically to protect them from deportation, without first conducting a statutorily mandated inquiry into whether they are prima facie eligible for those visas.

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Over the last thirty years, Congress has created a carefully balanced framework for the application of immigration laws to noncitizen survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and other serious crimes, in an effort to address an endemic public safety issue: undocumented people are often reluctant to report violent crime to police or cooperate with investigations, out of fear of the consequences they might face from their abusers and from fear of deportation due to their legal status. Congress's express goal in addressing this problem was to improve public safety for all by creating protections against deportation and exploitation by encouraging noncitizen crime victims to come forward. 

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Central to this public safety goal are three critical avenues Congress created for survivors to obtain permanent residence in the United States: (1) relief under the Violence against Women ("VAWA"), under which survivors of domestic abuse by US citizens or green card holders may "self-petition" for immigrant visas, rather than relying on their abusive family members to request such visas on their behalf; (2) the "U visa," which affords a path to lawful status for noncitizens harmed by certain serious crimes and who help law enforcement investigate or prosecute those crimes; and (3) the "T visa," which affords lawful status to survivors of labor or sex trafficking.

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Until recently, ICE and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") followed Congress's lead and implemented policies that generally chose not to pursue civil immigration enforcement against individuals who have applied for VAWA, a U visa, or a T visa. The current ICE policies and practices challenged through this litigation, however, reverse these decades of agency practice and capsize the careful balance that Congress created. Rather than protecting immigrant survivors, the new ICE guidance, policies, and practices greenlight their arrest, imprisonment, and detention.

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The lawsuit challenges these harmful and unlawful ICE policies under the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"), the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), and the US Constitution. Among other things, the lawsuit asks the court to:

• Find the current ICE policies that allow for the arrest, imprisonment, and deportation of immigrant survivors unlawful and order that they be set aside and no longer implemented;

• Enjoin ICE from ignoring or overriding deferred action granted by USCIS based on a U or T visa petition and declare that only USCIS may revoke such deferred action and even then, only after notice and an opportunity to be heard; and

• Declare current ICE policies and practices of imprisoning and deporting immigrant survivors who have deferred action in connection with a pending U or T visa to be unconstitutional, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the US Constitution