Despite widespread condemnation of the Bush administration’s “Return to Sender” and “Cross Check” programs – which CCR successfully challenged in Argueta v. Myers and Aguilar v. ICE – ICE’s practice of raiding residential homes continued under the Obama administration, and the agency did little to stop agents from violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, especially in remote immigrant communities. The violation of these rights can take frightening and sometimes violent turns, yet complaints filed with the agency often took months to be addressed and rarely produced any results.

In October 2013, the Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) and the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama (HICA), along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a Freedom of Information Request with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking information related to ICE’s home raids policies as well as the particulars of a December 2011 ICE warrantless home raid operation in Latinx homes in Northern Alabama.  After the agencies failed to comply, CCR filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York. Judge J. Paul Oetken ordered the agencies to begin producing documents in December 2014. 

In late 2018, ICE finished production of documents, and in March 2019 entered a stipulation settling the case.

The case was part of CCR’s support of grassroots immigrants’ rights groups fighting injustice in immigration policing and enforcement as well as CCR’s use of FOIA to support grassroots communities in exposing abusive government practices.