Challenging unlawful policy blocking immigrants from seeking legal status and humanitarian protections

This case challenges a Trump-Vance administration policy that blocks detained immigrants from pursuing lawful immigration status and humanitarian protections that Congress created for people in vulnerable situations, including survivors of trafficking and domestic violence, abused and abandoned children, refugees, and spouses of U.S. citizens.

Under federal immigration law, many forms of immigration relief can only be decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), even when a person is detained or already in removal proceedings. Those protections include Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) for abused and abandoned children, T visas for survivors of trafficking, U visas for survivors of serious crimes, certain asylum-related petitions, and adjustment of status applications for some immigrants seeking lawful permanent residence.

To process these applications, USCIS generally requires biometric information such as fingerprints, photographs, and signatures. But in December 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new policy under which it would stop collecting biometrics for detained immigrants applying for relief through USCIS. At the same time, USCIS continues denying applications when applicants fail to appear for biometrics appointments — appointments that detained people cannot attend because they are in government custody.

The lawsuit argues that the policy creates an impossible situation: detained immigrants are prevented from providing biometrics while also being denied relief for failing to provide biometrics. Because immigration judges often lack the authority to decide these applications, many detained people are left with no path to pursue the protections Congress established for them.

The complaint was filed on behalf of detained immigrants directly harmed by the policy, including a trafficking survivor seeking a T visa, a survivor of domestic violence seeking a U visa, an abused child seeking SIJS, an Iranian asylum seeker seeking derivative asylum through his spouse, and lawful-status applicants seeking permanent residency through family-based or humanitarian protections. The plaintiffs allege that the policy unlawfully deprives them of access to immigration relief, exposes them to prolonged detention, and places them at risk of deportation, family separation, persecution, and violence.

The lawsuit further argues that DHS violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, federal regulations requiring DHS to collect biometrics for detained immigrants, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Plaintiffs also challenge the policy as arbitrary and capricious because DHS failed to explain the change, ignored its impact on vulnerable applicants, and implemented it without required notice-and-comment procedures.

Plaintiffs seek to certify a nationwide class of detained immigrants affected by the policy and ask the court to vacate the biometrics policy and block its enforcement.