Advocates challenge ICE policy they say endangers crime victims

A group of legal advocacy organizations and immigrants who say they are survivors and witnesses of crimes alleged Wednesday that recent changes to immigration enforcement policies unlawfully subject them to detention and deportation.

However, the Department of Homeland Security rejected the claims, saying all who are deported receive due process and a final removal order, and that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue to lawfully defend victims from criminals.

According to the complaint, an ICE directive issued in July instructs officers to widely deny or revoke protective status in most cases, replacing prior guidance that allowed humanitarian, medical or family-based discretion before arrests or removals. This new guidance, the plaintiffs claim, established two unlawful practices - "de facto revocation" and "blind removal" policies - that purportedly void existing humanitarian protections without due process.

Rebecca S. Brown of Public Counsel

The plaintiffs - represented by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and Public Counsel - contend the new directive violates the Administrative Procedure Act and contradicts legal protections for asylum seekers, trafficking victims and other vulnerable noncitizen victims who are lawfully in the country. Immigration Center for Women and Children et al. v. Noem et al., 2:25-cv-09848 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 15, 2025).

"Our lawsuit calls on the government to respect the legal rights and protections of brave people who stepped forward to make our communities safer," Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law attorney Erika Cervantes said for the plaintiffs in a statement.

One of the individual plaintiffs who had been living in the country for 14 years and worked as a teacher's aide, according to the complaint, said she lawfully applied for a T visa this year - which protects trafficking victims - but was denied and then self-deported.

The complaint alleged that ICE threatened to "forcibly deport" her without her children, who are U.S. citizens.

"Congress created these protections to keep us all safe and to reaffirm that in the United States, everyone has the right to access the criminal justice system," Rebecca S. Brown of Public Counsel said in a statement.

"Now, because of this administration's unlawful actions, immigrants are not reporting violent crimes, including domestic violence, rape, trafficking and assault ... out of fear of being turned over to the deportation machine. Worse still, survivors are being separated from their families - and in some cases being sent straight back to their abusers."

In defense of the disputed directive, a media official for the Department of Homeland Security said the plaintiffs' claims were misguided.

"This is yet another clickbait headline. Every illegal alien ICE removes has had due process and has a final order of removal - meaning they have no legal right to be in the country," the department email said.

Attached in the government's email were more than 30 case summaries from recent months, described as "a few recent examples" of how the department was handling the issue.

"Day-in and day-out, America's brave agents are working to get out of our country tens of thousands of human traffickers and domestic abusers that the Biden Administration let in. Even under the government shutdown, our ICE officers are working without pay to defend victims and lock up criminals," the email continued.

The putative class action, filed in Los Angeles federal court, targets Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The plaintiffs say the disputed policy changes let ICE and USCIS revoke deferred action and work authorization for pending petitioners without notice or a chance to respond. They also claim the guidance allows ICE to detain and deport crime victims with pending visa applications without reviewing their eligibility, despite safeguards Congress created.

"Survivor-based benefits" under laws such as the Violence Against Women Act, the complaint notes, were established to protect non-citizen victims who cooperate with law enforcement and to encourage reporting of crimes like trafficking.

The lawsuit argues the new guidance abruptly rescinds prior directives that ensured those protections. "For decades, ICE policy and practice was generally not to pursue civil immigration enforcement against individuals with pending petitions for survivor-based benefits, absent serious adverse factors such as public safety concerns," the complaint states.

"The 2025 Guidance reverses these decades of agency practice and capsizes the careful balance that Congress created," it continues.