Maryland Immigrant Rights Coalition Sues ICE Over Warrantless ‘Arrest First, Ask Questions Later’ Policy

BALTIMORE, MD — Today, We Are CASA, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, the ACLU of Maryland and the National Immigration Project, filed a federal lawsuit and a motion for a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) to end the agency’s practice of conducting warrantless immigration arrests in Maryland. The case, Guzman v. D.H.S., challenges ICE’s widespread policy of “arrest first, ask questions later” as a violation of the Fourth Amendment and federal statutes.

The preliminary injunction requested in the lawsuit would prohibit ICE from continuing this practice during the litigation. The case is co-counseled by the National Immigration Project, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, and the ACLU of Maryland.

The lawsuit alleges that since January 2025, ICE has engaged in a pattern of unlawful arrests across Maryland without probable cause as required by law. The complaint details aggressive tactics, including unmarked vehicles tailing work trucks, violent stops where agents box in vehicles and smash windows, and arrests of everyone in the vicinity regardless of the intended target. The plaintiffs, which include We Are CASA and four individual Marylanders, including a U.S. Citizen, are seeking class-action status to achieve relief for all of Maryland.

“Over the past 21 months, plain-clothed, masked, armed, unidentified and untrained federal agents have terrorized Maryland communities from the Eastern Shore to Park Heights, all the way to Washington County. These agents have indiscriminately stalked neighborhoods, arresting community members whom they perceive to be Brown or Black immigrants without warrants and without probable cause. This is racial profiling,” said We Are CASA’s Legal Director Shana Khader. “This violence waged on working class Black, Latine, Afro-descendant, indigenous, and immigrant Marylanders must be stopped. This is illegal and is unacceptable. That is why We Are CASA along with Amica Center, ACLU of MD, and National Immigration Project took to the courts to defend the Constitutional rights of Marylanders under attack by this rogue and lawless agency that is ICE.”

The filing follows a significant victory for the coalition in December 2025, when they secured a preliminary injunction in Escobar Molina v. D.H.S. that prohibited warrantless arrests without probable cause in Washington, D.C. The number of warrantless arrests in the District has since dropped sharply, yet they continue in Maryland. The Maryland lawsuit highlights the devastating impact of these arrests on families and communities, including the specific targeting of Haitian Marylanders in the wake of the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti.

Guillermo* shares, “When they took me—without a warrant, without cause—they didn’t just take my freedom. They took a father away from the school pickup line. They removed a husband from his home. They took an essential worker from a family that depends on him. To my kids—I know you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to be the ones explaining to your friends why Papá wasn’t home. You didn’t ask to be scared every time you heard a car outside, or to grow up faster than you should have. But you didn’t just carry that fear silently—you turned it into something else. You stood up for me. You believed in getting your father back when it would have been easier to just be sad and stay quiet. I am standing here today, in part, because my own children refused to give up on me.” Guillermo is a pseudonym.

Under federal law, for a warrantless immigration arrest to be lawful, an officer must have probable cause to believe the individual is in the country unlawfully and that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. The lawsuit argues that ICE has failed to meet these requirements in the voluminous arrests made in Maryland since 2025, violating the Fourth Amendment and federal statute.

The lawsuit comes as Maryland is at the center of a national debate on immigration enforcement. The state is currently defending the Community Trust Act, a state law passed in 2026 that limits local police cooperation with ICE, against a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in July 2026.

“As ICE roams Maryland’s streets looking for people to arrest to fill their quotas, our Brown and Black immigrant neighbors live in constant fear of being arbitrarily arrested, beaten, and shot by masked and armed agents,” said Austin Rose, Managing Attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. “Federal courts in other states have already found that ICE’s ‘arrest first, ask questions later’ policy is blatantly unlawful, and now it’s time to put an end to it here in Maryland.”

“We proudly join our courageous partners in fighting to protect the rule of law and public safety here in Maryland, where ICE continues violently and illegally arresting community members on their way to work or school,” said Sonia Kumar, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Maryland. “These abuses of power threaten us all, not just the Black and Brown Marylanders most directly harmed by the government’s lawlessness. No government agency is above the law, and we will continue to fight for our people and this basic principle here in Maryland.”

“The Fourth Amendment doesn’t ask about your immigration status, and it never has,” said Yulie Landan, Staff Attorney at the National Immigration Project. “Before the government takes your freedom, it needs a reason that belongs to you specifically, not a hunch. ICE has said out loud that it only needs suspicion. Agents arrest people without knowing anything about them, sometimes not even a name. Everyone in Maryland is owed better, and this lawsuit seeks to hold ICE to the standard it’s been ignoring. For everyone it stops in this state, whatever their status.”