Court Cases

We filed a federal lawsuit challenging an Executive Order requiring all new passports to display an individual’s biological sex at birth.

In December 2025, the ACLU of Massachusetts filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of our client, Carlos Zapata Rivera. The lawsuit alleges that an ICE agent unlawfully applied a carotid restraint to Mr. Zapata Rivera while arresting him on Nov. 6, 2025, then refused him prompt emergency medical care. Mr. Zapata Rivera, a resident of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was driving his wife to work with their one-year-old daughter in the car when they were pulled over by several ICE agents. The agents informed Mr. Zapata Rivera’s wife that they intended to arrest her. The lawsuit alleges that David Jackson, a federal agent employed by ICE, climbed into the vehicle and pressed his thumbs forcefully on Mr. Zapata Rivera’s carotid arteries, restricting blood flow to his brain. Mr. Zapata Rivera lost consciousness, and he experienced involuntary seizure-like movements. Jackson continued to apply the carotid restraint with at least one hand while these involuntary movements continued. The Department of Homeland Security’s own policies prohibit agents from using carotid restraint techniques except when deadly force is justified. The lawsuit also alleges that ICE agents refused to allow Mr. Zapata Rivera to be evaluated by emergency medical personnel at the scene. After his release, he continued to suffer severe physical symptoms and went to the emergency room for treatment. The Department of Homeland Security’s public statements about the incident accused Mr. Zapata Rivera of faking a seizure and refusing medical care. An immigrant from Ecuador, Mr. Zapata Rivera applied for asylum in early 2024 and has been authorized to work in the United States while that application is pending. After his counsel sent a letter to ICE requesting that the agency preserve evidence relating to this incident, ICE abruptly sent Mr. Zapata Rivera a “call-in letter” demanding that he appear with his passport at ICE’s Burlington office at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. It was the first time he had received such a request since early 2023.

Public records lawsuit seeks basic information about the state’s deployment and use of a powerful and unregulated surveillance technology that has generated widespread outcry in communities across Massachusetts.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to seek redress and accountability for extrajudicial killings pursuant to the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute.

UPDATE: In what appears to be the first decision to address mandatory detention under the Laken Riley Act, a federal judge in Boston ruled that detaining an individual solely on the basis of his prior arrest violates due process. Mr. Doe received a court-ordered bond hearing and was later released. In July 2025, the ACLU of Massachusetts, together with the ACLU, law firm Rubin Pomerleau, P.C., and Boston College Law School Immigration Clinic filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the detention of an 18-year-old under the Laken Riley Act (LRA). The habeas petition alleges “John Doe” was arrested and held without bond based solely on unproven accusations, in violation of his due process rights. Mr. Doe is a recipient of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), which provides a pathway to Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) status for young people who are the victims of abuse, abandonment, or neglect. On July 4, Mr. Doe was arrested by local police in Massachusetts based on an allegation of misdemeanor shoplifting. There are no pending charges from this incident, and Mr. Doe has never been convicted of any crime. Nevertheless, ICE arrested Mr. Doe as he walked out of the police station and placed him in civil immigration detention. Mr. Doe has been jailed at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility for over a month without a bond hearing. Mr. Doe was jailed without any due process under the Laken Riley Act. Enacted in January 2025, the LRA purports to authorize ICE to detain people with no due process based solely on unproven accusations such as arrests or pending charges, including for misdemeanor property crimes like shoplifting. In the federal case, Mr. Doe argues that the LRA violates his due process rights and also that, as a SIJS recipient, he does not meet the statutory criteria that would make the LRA apply.

In March 2025, doctors from Harvard Medical School challenged the removal of their articles from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), a government-run website for doctors and medical researchers to share information about medical errors, misdiagnoses, and patient outcomes. The papers were removed as part of a takedown of information that the government contends promotes “gender ideology,” including any articles containing certain prohibited terms, including “LGBTQ” and “trans[gender].” The articles removed include “Endometriosis: A Common and Commonly Missed and Delayed Diagnosis,” co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Celeste Royce, which included a sentence about diagnosis in transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and “Multiple Missed Opportunities for Suicide Risk Assessment in Emergency and Primary Care Settings,” co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Gordon Schiff, which included a sentence about heightened risk in LGBTQ communities. The researchers are represented by the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Massachusetts. In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that required federal agencies to remove all statements that “promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.” The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) subsequently issued guidance directing all agencies to “[t]ake down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology.” PSNet’s removal of articles based on blacklisted terms followed. PSNet is run by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The suit argues that the government violated the First Amendment by imposing a viewpoint-based and unreasonable restriction on the doctors’ participation in a forum the government has opened to private speakers. It also argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act, including by removing articles without a reasoned basis. OPM, AHRQ, and HHS are named in the suit. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

In April 2025, researchers, along with American Public Health Association (APHA), the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), and Ibis Reproductive Health, filed a lawsuit challenging the abrupt cancellation of research grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. The grants were cancelled after NIH staff were directed to eliminate research on disfavored topics and populations without clear guidance or justification – jeopardizing critical medical discoveries that drive advancements in diagnosing, preventing, and treating life-threatening diseases. In February, the NIH began a reckless purge of federal grants, halting application processes midstream, and stripping funding opportunities from its website. Hundreds of research projects — many of which had been underway for years, representing thousands of hours of work and billions of dollars in investment — were abruptly cancelled without a scientifically valid explanation. NIH attempted to justify the first wave of its sweeping grant cancellations by vaguely citing connections to “gender identity” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), without defining these terms or explaining how they apply to the terminated research. As a result, critical studies addressing urgent health disparities — designed to develop prioritized strategies for populations at the highest risk of disease — were indiscriminately wiped out. This eradication of research expanded to include research on “vaccine hesitancy,” “COVID,” and any research being conducted or involving labs located in South Africa and China. This unprecedented purge marks a sharp departure from the NIH’s longstanding approach, in which funding decisions have been guided by congressional mandates, regulatory requirements, and scientific expertise. NIH grants are among the most competitive and rigorously vetted research funding opportunities in the world, undergoing multiple layers of expert review. Most applications submitted are rejected, and until the time of filing, terminations had been exceedingly rare. Training grants, some of which are designed to facilitate the entry of researchers from historically underrepresented groups into the biomedical field as mandated by Congress, were also canceled, jeopardizing opportunities for the best and the brightest of the next generation of scientists, particularly harming racial and ethnic minorities, women, people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and those from rural communities. The researchers, along with APHA, which has 23,000 public health professional members, UAW, a union of 120,000 workers including graduate students, postdocs, researchers, and faculty in higher education, and Ibis Reproductive Health, a global research organization, are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, Protect Democracy, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against the NIH, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The lawsuit claims the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by acting arbitrarily and without justification, failing to provide scientific reasoning or follow proper procedures. NIH also exceeded its legal authority by disregarding congressional mandates to fund health disparities research and address the underrepresentation of certain groups in the medical field, and by failing to comply with grant termination regulations. Additionally, the lawsuit argues that NIH’s actions violate the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections by canceling grants based on vague and undefined criteria. The lawsuit seeks to restore funding to researchers whose grants were unlawfully terminated and to prevent the NIH from continuing to cut awards in this arbitrary and unlawful manner.