Court Cases

As federal agents continue to deploy reckless immigration operations across Maine and the country, the ACLU of Maine is fighting back in court, and helping others do the same.

In September 2025, the ACLU of Maine, together with several partners, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court to challenge the widespread denial of bond hearings to people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the complaint demonstrates, this denial upends decades of settled law and established practice in immigration proceedings.

We’re suing Sanford for refusing to comply with Maine’s Freedom of Access Act. We’re asking the Cumberland County Superior Court to order Sanford to turn over public information about their police department’s cooperation with ICE and CBP – something 112 other Maine agencies have already done.

We sued the Trump administration for issuing an executive order that blatantly violated the plain language of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The ACLU filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 100 students whose F-1 student immigration statuses were unlawfully terminated. We asked the court to reinstate their F-1 student status so they could continue their studies.

We sued the federal government in 2020 for unconstitutional border patrol checkpoints in northern New England. In 2023, Border Patrol agreed to stop operating a problematic checkpoint until January 1, 2025.