ICE Re-Detention Policy Lawsuit Filed in Atlanta

Four immigrants who were released from custody and kept every check-in have filed a class action challenging the ICE re-detention policy in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The suit, filed Nov. 12 in federal court in Atlanta, asks a judge to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement from re-arresting people it already released unless officers first find a material change in their circumstances.

The case, Sosa Martinez v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and covers the territory of ICE’s Atlanta Field Office. Defendants include DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Acting ICE Director David Venturella. The plaintiffs, from Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela and Mexico, live in Greensboro, Dunn, Athens and Savannah, and each has a pending application for immigration relief, according to their lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union’s three state affiliates.

What the ICE re-detention policy replaced

Federal law gives the government broad power over people it releases: under 8 U.S.C. 1226(b), it “at any time may revoke a bond or parole,” rearrest the person and detain them again. For decades, though, that power came with a brake. In Matter of Sugay, a 1981 Board of Immigration Appeals precedent, the board said a release decision should not be disturbed absent a change of circumstances.

The lawsuit says that changed around May 2025, when DHS adopted what the plaintiffs call a “Re-Detention Policy” letting officers re-arrest people without first finding a material change. The ACLU affiliates say the Atlanta office had followed the older changed-circumstances approach for more than four decades, and that “hundreds, if not thousands” of people have been re-detained in the three states since the shift. That figure is the plaintiffs’ estimate; ICE does not publish counts of re-detentions, and no independent number could be verified.

“The re-detention policy departs from longstanding agency precedent, policy and practice,” the complaint states, as quoted by The Post and Courier. The legal claims rest mainly on the Administrative Procedure Act: the suit argues DHS dropped the old practice without a reasoned explanation and ignored the reliance of people who complied. It also raises Fourth Amendment claims. “Our clients have complied with the rules the government placed on them,” said Corina Scott, a staff attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina.

Neither DHS nor ICE’s Atlanta office responded to The Post and Courier’s request for comment. In the closest parallel case, the government argued that the challengers lacked standing, that their claims were unripe or moot, and that 8 U.S.C. 1252 barred the court from hearing them.

A San Francisco ruling the plaintiffs want copied

That parallel case is Garro Pinchi v. Noem in the Northern District of California. On Dec. 19, 2025, Judge P. Casey Pitts provisionally certified a class of noncitizens within the jurisdiction of ICE’s San Francisco Field Office and stayed the re-detention policy under Section 705 of the APA while the case proceeds. He rejected the government’s standing, ripeness, mootness and Section 1252 jurisdiction arguments.

The Atlanta plaintiffs are asking for the same kind of interim halt, plus a declaration that the policy is unlawful and an order restoring the old practice. If Atlanta follows San Francisco, the same ICE policy would apply in some field offices and not others. Elsewhere, detainees are winning release one habeas petition at a time, as in cases over ICE re-arrests that drew contempt inquiries, a UC Berkeley student’s release over a bond hearing and a Kentucky ruling over a missing Form I-286.

Any appeal from Atlanta would go to the Eleventh Circuit. Section 1252(f)(1), which limits lower courts’ power to enjoin the operation of parts of the immigration statute on a classwide basis, is likely to be the government’s main line of defense. The open question is whether a Section 705 stay of an agency policy, rather than an injunction, escapes that limit, a jurisdictional objection a California court rejected at this preliminary stage.

Under a policy that allows re-arrest without new facts, a routine ICE check-in that once proved compliance can end in custody, as in the recent check-in arrest of a University of Maryland valedictorian. Skipping the appointment is no answer, since a missed check-in violates release conditions and can supply the very change in circumstances the old rule required.

Until a judge rules, nothing changes in the three states, because the San Francisco stay covers only that office. The suit lands as the administration reports record enforcement totals, detailed in ICE’s fiscal 2026 deportation figures.

What to watch

Interim relief: a motion to halt the policy while the case proceeds, and the government’s response.
Appeals: any Ninth Circuit review of the Garro Pinchi stay, which could shape arguments in Atlanta.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds an LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Diego and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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