ACLU files lawsuit seeking details on Trump’s plan for mass deportation
Civil-liberties lawyers alarmed by President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to launch mass deportations of undocumented immigrants sued the federal government Monday for information about how authorities might quickly remove people from the United States.
The federal lawsuit alleges that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to respond to requests for basic information about its existing contracts with private airline companies that make up “ICE Air,” as well as ground transportation services, airfields and policies governing deportation flights, including those carrying children.
Lawyers said the information is urgent because of Trump’s election victory this month and his upcoming inauguration on Jan. 20. Advocates for immigrants have accused ICE and its contractors of treating migrants harshly and holding them in inhumane conditions.
“Despite the critical role these flights play in the removal system - in many instances, serving as the mechanism for deportation - ICE Air remains shrouded in secrecy,” said the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California. “This secrecy has masked responsibility for serious abuses and danger on ICE Air flights.”
During his campaign, Trump promised to increase deportations starting on “day one” of his administration, though he has provided few details about how he would execute that plan. The comments sent advocates for immigrants scrambling for details about the existing state of the deportation system so that they could protect immigrants and inform U.S. taxpayers about its cost.
“We’ve been preparing for a mass detention and deportation agenda for the last nine months,” said Kyle Virgien, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU. “Now that Trump is the president-elect, it’s become apparent that this is a fight that we’re going to need to have.”
ICE spokesman Mike Alvarez said Monday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team, reaffirmed Monday that Trump intends to “marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families.”
Trump made similar threats to deport immigrants during his first term from 2017 to 2021. Partly because of resistance from Democrat-led cities and towns, his administration deported fewer than 1 million of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.
During Trump’s first term the ACLU proved to be Trump’s arch-nemesis in court, filing approximately 430 legal challenges against his policies on immigration and other issues. On immigration, lawyers fought Trump’s efforts to restrict access to asylum and led a major case that halted his forced separation of migrant parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border.