Four immigrants with pending applications for immigration relief have filed a class action in federal court in Georgia challenging what their lawyers call the Department of Homeland Security's abrupt reversal of a more-than-four-decade-old policy against re-detaining people who were released from immigration custody and are complying with their release conditions.
The lawsuit, Sosa Martinez et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., was filed on November 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by the American Civil Liberties Union affiliates of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia together with the law firm Foley Hoag LLP, the ACLU of Georgia announced. The claims in the filing are the plaintiffs' allegations; DHS has not responded in court, and no judge has ruled on the new case.
Who the four plaintiffs are
The named plaintiffs are Livinton Sosa Martinez, a 41-year-old Nicaraguan man who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina; Raquel Mariona Ebora, a 39-year-old Honduran woman who lives in Dunn, North Carolina; Alvaro Ibañez-Cardenas, a 35-year-old Venezuelan man who lives in Athens, Georgia; and Ambrosio Trujillo Zavaleta, a 46-year-old Mexican man who lives in Savannah, Georgia. All four have pending applications for immigration relief, according to the ACLU.
The two policies at the centre of the case
For more than four decades, the ACLU says, the ICE Atlanta Field Office followed DHS's "Changed Circumstances Policy," under which officers did not re-detain people who had previously been released to await their immigration proceedings unless an individualised determination found their circumstances had materially changed. People released under that approach attended immigration check-ins and court hearings while living and working in their communities.
Around May 2025, the plaintiffs allege, DHS abandoned that policy and adopted a "Re-Detention Policy" authorising officers to re-arrest and re-detain people without determining whether any material change had occurred. The ACLU says hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been re-detained since May 2025 in the Atlanta Field Office's area alone, which covers North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
Declare the Re-Detention Policy unlawful, block its continued use, restore the Changed Circumstances Policy, and temporarily halt re-detentions under the new policy while the case proceeds. The suit names DHS, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Acting ICE Director David Venturella and Acting Atlanta Field Office Director Kristen Sullivan as defendants.
The legal argument
The plaintiffs challenge the policy change under the Administrative Procedure Act, the federal law that lets courts strike down agency policies adopted without a reasoned explanation, without considering the impact on people who relied on the old policy, or in violation of the Constitution and other laws. The filing also argues that the Fourth Amendment protects people from being re-detained on the same immigration charges without an individualised determination that their circumstances have materially changed.
The lawyers say many people built their lives, kept jobs, paid taxes, pursued education and cared for families in reliance on the old policy, and that people have since been re-arrested without warning at routine ICE check-ins — separating families, disrupting businesses and cutting people off from essential medical care, in the ACLU's account. The ACLU also says ICE often detains people far from their homes, making it harder to reach lawyers and gather evidence for their immigration claims.
What the lawyers said
"Our clients have complied with the rules the government placed on them," said Corina Scott, a staff attorney at the ACLU of North Carolina. "They have shown up for court hearings, attended immigration check-in appointments, and adhered to the conditions of their release." Raneem Ashrawi of the ACLU of Georgia said people had built their lives on the understanding that following DHS conditions would let them remain free while their cases proceeded, and Sarah Schreiber of the ACLU of South Carolina said residents should not live in fear of being "baselessly torn from their community and thrown back into detention."
A California ruling the plaintiffs point to
The ACLU notes that a federal district court has already found DHS's re-detention policy unlawful and temporarily halted its use in the ICE San Francisco Field Office's area, concluding, in the ACLU's summary, that the agency radically departed from longstanding practice without the legally required justification. That ruling does not bind the Georgia court, but the new plaintiffs are asking for the same kind of relief in the Southeast.
Why this matters for Punjabi and other immigrant families in the Southeast
The Atlanta Field Office area includes fast-growing immigrant communities across the Carolinas and Georgia, including Punjabi families in trucking, small business and agriculture who routinely travel for ICE check-ins while their cases are pending. A policy that allows re-detention at a routine check-in, without a new individual finding, changes the risk calculation for every family in that position — which is why this Georgia filing is being watched well beyond the four named plaintiffs.
What happens next
The government will have a chance to respond in court, and the plaintiffs' request for a temporary halt to the policy will be an early test of the case. No hearing date was announced in the ACLU's release. Watch for DHS's first court filing, any ruling on the temporary request, and whether the court certifies the case as a class action covering re-detained people across the three states.