Following the Biden Administration’s announcement of a new policy on ICE courthouse arrests, today we dismissed our lawsuit in Ryan et al v. ICE. We are hopeful that this new policy will finally reverse the culture of fear that had been infecting our immigrant communities and their access to our courthouses.

We filed this groundbreaking lawsuit in 2019 to challenge the Trump administration policy which violated the fundamental right of all Massachusetts residents to access our courts. The injunction, issued almost two years ago, was the first of its kind in the nation and allowed all residents of the Commonwealth to use the Massachusetts courts without fear of arrest due to civil violations of federal immigration laws.

The Biden administration’s new policy finally recognizes that executing civil immigration enforcement actions in or near a courthouse may chill individuals’ access to courthouses and, as a result, impair the fair administration of, as well as access to justice. We will monitor the implementation of this policy to ensure that ICE does not resume its interference with access to the Massachusetts courts.

We are very grateful for the leadership of Goodwin Procter LLP and for the confidence placed in us by the advocates and community leaders who joined us to stop civil courthouse arrests.  We continue to and will always stand with our immigrant communities.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan

Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins

Committee for Public Counsel Services

Lawyers for Civil Rights