Immigrants' Rights

Updates to the city’s Welcoming Community Ordinance further restrict local collaboration with ICE and reinforce strong protections for First Amendment activity

Federal court throws out DOJ's attempt to strike down Boston's Trust Act

A conversation with Traci Griffith, Racial Justice Program Director

New bill would establish clear, statewide standards governing interactions between local authorities and ICE

In September 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, together with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the ACLU of New Hampshire, the ACLU of Maine, the law firm Araujo and Fisher, the law firm Foley Hoag, and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court to challenge the widespread denial of bond hearings to people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the complaint demonstrates, this denial upends decades of settled law and established practice in immigration proceedings. The complaint alleges that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice recently and abruptly began to misclassify people arrested by ICE inside the United States. DHS and DOJ started systematically reclassifying these people from the statutory authority of 8 U.S.C. § 1226, which usually allows for the opportunity to request bond during removal proceedings, to the no-bond detention provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1225, which does not apply to people arrested in the interior of the United States and placed in removal proceedings. This case is brought on behalf of Jose Arnulfo Guerrero Orellana and a putative class of similarly situated individuals. Mr. Guerrero Orellana has been living in the United States for over a decade. He brings this case to vindicate his own right to a bond hearing — where an immigration judge can determine whether his detention is justified to protect the community or ensure his appearance in court — and that of thousands of other detainees in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire who will be denied the opportunity to seek release on bond under the new legal ruling adopted by the executive branch. The complaint alleges that the government's new policy violates constitutional and statutory due process rights as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.

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.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Afghans facing danger at the hands of the reinstalled Taliban regime, and on behalf of New England-based loved ones attempting to bring them to safety in the United States through a process called humanitarian parole.

The ACLU of Massachusetts, together with American Oversight, filed a lawsuit seeking the release of records concerning the investigation and prosecution of a state court judge.