Here below is a refresher on that case's status; and now many many humans may see the Fourteeth Amendment means what it says -- from several of the earlier filings, strung together -- thanks to the able USDC Judge Cummings, here:
. . .In 2018, five individual plaintiffs (Margarito Castañon Nava, John Doe, Miguel Cortes Torres, Guillermo Hernandez Hernandez, and Erick Rivera Sales) and two organizational plaintiffs (the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Organized Communities Against Deportations) filed this class action lawsuit against defendants including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure that ICE complies with its statutory obligations under 8 U.S.C. §1357(a)(2) when conducting warrantless arrests of persons who have not obtained lawful immigration or citizenship status in the United States. . . .
After the Court (then Chief Judge Pallmeyer) denied ICE’s motion to dismiss, the parties agreed to settle this case. . . . The Agreement imposed several obligations on ICE related to arrests of persons without a warrant for a civil violation of U.S. immigration laws within ICE’s Chicago Area of Responsibility (namely, the states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, and Kansas). The Agreement had a three-year term that was set to expire on May 12, 2025, unless enforcement provisions within the Agreement triggered its extension.
The parties agree that they were able to resolve any disputes concerning ICE’s compliance with the Agreement during the first two-and-one-half years of its term. However, shortly after the second Trump Administration began in late January 2025, plaintiffs’ counsel received multiple reports from class members alleging that ICE agents had arrested them without warrants in violation of the Agreement and the governing law (8 U.S.C. §1357(a)(2)). After trying, without success, to resolve their disputes with ICE, plaintiffs filed their motion to enforce the Court’s order regarding the parties’ Agreement. . . .
ICE has engaged in repeated, material violations of the Agreement and it seeks relief on behalf of twenty-six class members who plaintiffs claim were subjected to unlawful warrantless arrests. To be clear, plaintiffs do not challenge . . . the authority of ICE and other law enforcement authorities to arrest foreign nationals with judicial arrest warrants issued in connection with alleged violations of federal and state criminal laws. . . .
[O]n September 26, 2025, plaintiffs filed a “notice of additional violations of consent decree and request for status conference” in which plaintiffs allege that ICE has engaged in over twenty-five additional violations of the Agreement in connection with “Operation Midway Blitz,” a major on-going immigration enforcement campaign targeting the Chicagoland area. (Dckt. #199 at 2). Plaintiffs further noted that they have received over seventy additional referrals of potential violations of the Agreement. (Id. at 2–3). On September 30, 2025, plaintiffs filed a “supplemental notice of consent decree violations” in which they allege that ICE has “dramatically escalated” its enforcement in Chicago in violation of the Agreement. . . .
[T]he Court finds that plaintiffs have shown by a preponderance of the evidence that ICE arrested twenty-two out of the twenty-six claimant class members without a warrant in violation of the Agreement and the requirements of 8 U.S.C. §1357(a)(2). The Court orders ICE to provide relief to those individuals under the terms of the Agreement and to pay the attorney’s fees that plaintiffs incurred in bringing their motion to enforce. Second, the Court, in its discretion, finds that plaintiffs have met their burden under Rule 60(b)(5) of showing that a modification of the Agreement is warranted because ICE has failed to substantially comply with its terms. . . .
[From this later order, in the case -- signed by Judge Cummings:]
In their 10/31/25 submission, plaintiffs assert that “Defendants have only produced arrest records for 21 individuals of 67 they reviewed.” [238 at 6]. To the extent that they have not done so already, defendants shall produce to plaintiffs’ counsel the arrest records of the remaining forty-six individuals referenced above by 9:00 a.m. on 11/5/25 and they shall thereafter promptly meet and confer regarding whether these individuals were arrested in violation of the terms of the Settlement Agreement.If the parties agree that one or more of these individuals were arrested in violation of the terms of the Settlement Agreement, they shall promptly be released from custody without conditions. . . .
Excellent. Sanity is in fact making a comeback. Onward, to more free-wheeling time-lapse GoPro drone footage, of the aurorae, in the high Rockies, tonight. . . . grin.
नमस्ते
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