The Fight

Between October 2025 and April 2026, ICE and CBP agents conducted a surge of immigration arrests across New York — sweeping up collateral detainees (people who were not the stated targets of any enforcement action) along with intended targets. On April 8, 2026, the Legal Aid Society, NYCLU, Make the Road New York, and Covington & Burling LLP filed a federal class action in the Eastern District of New York challenging what they describe as a policy and practice of stopping New Yorkers based solely on perceived race and ethnicity, without the individualized reasonable suspicion required by law, and making warrantless arrests without the probable cause the statute demands. The case is NYCLU v. ICE and CBP, EDNY.

Timeline

• 2025-10 to 2026-03: ICE and CBP conduct hundreds of stops and arrests across greater New York; legal organizations document cases of people stopped while working, running errands, or driving — with agents providing no articulable basis beyond apparent Latino identity
• 2026-04-08: Legal Aid Society, NYCLU, Make the Road NY, and Covington & Burling file class action in EDNY on behalf of eight named Latino plaintiffs and the Workers’ Center of Central New York; named defendants are DHS, ICE, and CBP
• 2026-04-09: NYCLU issues press release; The City, Documented NY, and wire services cover the filing
• 2026 (ongoing): Case in early stages; plaintiffs seeking class certification and injunctive relief to bar suspicionless stops

Geographic Pattern of Incidents

Documented stops and arrests are concentrated in:

• Long Island: Brentwood (multiple incidents), Wyandanch, Farmingdale, Greenport, Hempstead
• Brooklyn: Bushwick
• Upstate NY: Buffalo/Cheektowaga

The geographic spread — from Nassau and Suffolk to Brooklyn to upstate — tracks directly with the counties where 287(g) agreements have proliferated, particularly Nassau (see ny-nassau-287g-deputization-lawsuit.md).

Key Actors

• Legal Aid Society — co-counsel
• NYCLU — co-counsel
• Make the Road New York — co-counsel and organizational plaintiff context (also plaintiff in Barco-Mercado v. Noem on 26 Federal Plaza conditions)
• Covington & Burling LLP — pro bono co-counsel
• Workers’ Center of Central New York — organizational plaintiff; documents stop patterns in upstate communities
• Named individual plaintiffs — Rene Antonio Benitez, Darwin Garcia Medrano, Hesler Asaf Garcia Lanza (named); others proceed under initials

Legal Theory

Federal law requires:

1. Reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation before any stop or detention
2. Probable cause of both an immigration violation and likelihood of escape before a warrantless arrest

The complaint alleges agents routinely ignore both standards — stopping people based exclusively on perceived race/ethnicity and making arrests without the statutory probable cause determination. The lawsuit also invokes federal statutes prohibiting use of race as a basis for enforcement action.

Scale

• 2,888 noncitizens arrested in greater NYC in the first six months of Trump’s second term — more than triple the pace under the prior administration
• Nationwide, ICE has reported collateral arrests comprising a substantial fraction of total operations

Sources

• NYCLU press release: Class action filed (Apr 8, 2026) — Full plaintiff list, legal theories, and statistical evidence
• NYCLU case page: NYCLU v. ICE and CBP — Ongoing case docket
• The City: ICE racially profiling NY immigrants, lawsuit says (Apr 9, 2026) — Reporting with plaintiff accounts
• Documented NY: A surge in the shadows (Apr 9, 2026) — Immigrant community impact analysis
• Queens Daily Eagle: DHS sued for illegal stops in New York (Apr 10, 2026) — Local coverage with geographic detail
• The Haitian Times: Warrantless ICE arrests and racial profiling in NY (Apr 19, 2026) — Coverage with Haitian community context