Immigrants’ Rights Clinic—Significant Achievements for 2024-25

September 1, 2025

The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (IRC) provides legal representation to immigrant communities in Chicago and around the country, including individual representation of immigrants in removal proceedings, immigration-related complex federal litigation, and policy and community education projects on behalf of community-based organizations. Clinical Professor of Law Nicole Hallett is director of the Clinic. The Clinic's significant accomplishments for 2024-25 are below.

The IRC had a busy year with several federal lawsuits and multiple victories for our clients. As always, IRC took on a variety of immigration-related cases, including individual representations, federal impact litigation, challenges to immigration detention, national security-related cases, and applications for humanitarian relief. IRC enrolled seventeen students and all nine 2Ls will return next academic year to continue their work in the clinic.

In re Nizar Trabelsi; Trabelsi v. Crawford (E.D.N.Y.)

Nizar Trabelsi is a Tunisian national who was arrested on September 13, 2001, for plotting an attack against a US military base in Belgium. He claims that he is innocent and that he confessed because his interrogators told him if he did not, he would be sent to Guantanamo and tortured. After being convicted in Belgium and serving his ten-year sentence, he was extradited to the United States to be prosecuted for the same crime.

During this process, the United States promised Belgium that it would not return Mr. Trabelsi to Tunisia but would instead return him to Belgium due to the risk of torture and the fact that he had been sentenced to a ten-year sentence in absentia for his alleged crime. Belgium presumably believed that he would be convicted and sentenced to life in the United States and it would not have to accept him back. The European Court of Human Rights subsequently declared his extradition illegal and awarded his family EUR 150,000 in damages and ordered the Belgium government to demand his return after his prosecution. In a shocking turn of events, in July 2023, Mr. Trabelsi was acquitted by a jury in Washington, DC. He was immediately transferred to ICE custody and issued a notice to appear.

IRC represented Mr. Trabelsi in his removal proceedings over five days of trial in December 2023 and January 2024. In August 2024, the Immigration Judge granted Mr. Trabelsi deferral of removal to Tunisia and ordered his return to Belgium. The government appealed and in February 2025, the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the Immigration Judge’s decision.

In addition, in August 2024, IRC co-counseled with the ACLU to bring a federal habeas petition and complaint for injunctive relief in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia related to his unlawful detention and egregious conditions of confinement. That lawsuit is still pending. Mr. Trabelsi won further relief from Belgian courts and is currently awaiting transfer to Belgium where he will be able to reunite with his family.

Press coverage:

Navarro v. Will County, N.D.I.L.

In March 2022, IRC filed a motion seeking the release of a Chicago resident being held by Will County on a material witness warrant as an end run around the Illinois Way Forward Act, which prohibits local jurisdictions from detaining non-citizens for civil immigration violations. After the Illinois Attorney General Office intervened, Will County agreed not to turn him over to ICE and released him instead. He has now reunited with his family. In March 2023, IRC filed a lawsuit against Will County under Section 1983 for the unlawful detention. Centro de Trabajadores Unidos (CTU), one of IRC’s community partners, held a press conference to draw attention to the issue of local non-compliance with Illinois sanctuary laws.

Press Coverage:

Students did fact investigation and drafted the complaint, briefed two motions to dismiss, served and responded to paper discovery, took depositions, and represented the client in a settlement conference in front of a U.S. Magistrate Judge. The lawsuit was resolved favorably out of court in February 2025.

Ameen V. Jennings (Ninth Circuit)

Omar Ameen came to the United States as a refugee from Iraq in 2014 and settled in Sacramento with his wife and children. Then, in 2018, he was arrested by the FBI-DHS Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and placed into extradition proceedings for the murder of a police officer in Iraq. The proceedings, which spanned three years, ended with the magistrate judge refusing to certify the extradition request and ordering Omar released. The court concluded that there was no evidence that he was a member of ISIS as the government alleged and that the evidence incontrovertibly showed that he had been in Turkey applying for refugee status at the time of the murder and could not have committed it. The court further found that the government’s key witnesses were not credible. The case garnered national attention because of its importance to the Trump Administration’s position that terrorists were entering the United States through the refugee resettlement program. In January 2020, the New Yorker ran a piece called “The Fight to Save an Innocent Refugee from Almost Certain Death,” which reported on how the investigation into Omar had come about and why the government’s witness in Iraq might have had a motive to lie.

After losing the extradition case, the government did not release Omar, but instead placed him in removal proceedings, arguing that he lied on his refugee application and that he had connections to ISIS, which rendered him deportable. After almost a year of removal proceedings, the immigration judge (IJ) found Omar removable on several non-terrorism related misrepresentations on his refugee application (while rejecting the terrorism allegations) and granted him relief under the Convention Against Torture. Both sides have appealed to the BIA.

In January 2022, IRC and Immigrant Legal Defense (ILD) filed a habeas petition challenging Omar’s detention after the IJ denied bond. In April 2022, Judge William Orrick granted the habeas petition in part and ordered the government to give Omar another bond hearing at which the government would bear the burden of proving dangerousness and flight risk by clear and convincing evidence. Unfortunately, the IJ denied bond a second time and Judge Orrick denied our motion to enforce, in which we had argued that the second bond hearing was also constitutionally deficient. Both sides appealed to the Ninth Circuit. After a lengthy mediation, the parties agreed to a settlement which limited the amount of time that Mr. Ameen will be forced to remain in detention and provided for secure immigration status for his wife and three children.

In March 2025, IRC and ILD filed another habeas petition arguing that the government had failed to find a country to send Mr. Ameen to and that his detention had become unconstitutionally prolonged. In April 2025, under pressure from the court, the government reached an agreement to resettle Mr. Ameen in Rwanda. He reports being happy to be free and he is adjusting to life in his new country.

Individual Representations

IRC represents many individuals whose cases cannot be shared in detail due to safety and privacy concerns. Here are summaries of a few of the cases IRC students worked on this year:

IRC won asylum for a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Students prepared the case, identified and worked with experts and drafted declarations.
IRC represented an Iranian woman apply for asylum on the basis of her activism and support for women’s rights. Students interviewed the client, gathered evidence, worked with expert witnesses and drafted a brief in support of her application. Her asylum interview is scheduled for later in the month.
IRC won relief under the Convention Against Torture for a Burmese woman who had lived in the United States for 25 years but had recently had issues with substance abuse. The student team spent months identifying and working with experts, gathering evidence, drafting declarations, drafting a pre-trial brief, and preparing witnesses. The students then handled the trial in Chicago Immigration Court in May 2025.
IRC represented a family from Mexico who were targeted by a cartel for one member of the family’s anti-corruption work. The student team is now preparing for a trial scheduled for November 2025.
IRC represented a woman from Venezuela on her asylum claim based on sexual orientation and political activism. In August 2024, she was granted asylum and is currently applying for her green card.
IRC represented a domestic violence survivor in filing a petition under the Violence Against Women Act so that she can remain lawfully in the U.S. without her husband. Her petition remains pending.
IRC represented an Afghan family who had worked for the U.S. government but had been left behind during the U.S. withdrawal. IRC filed applications for humanitarian parole in 2022. After waiting for three years, six members of the family arrived in the United States in January 2025.

Missing Migrants (with the Global Human Rights Clinic)

Thousands of Africans go missing each year attempting to cross international borders in search of safety and better opportunities. Despite the broad recognition among states of the importance and need to address the situation of missing migrants, there is a lack of formal coordination and procedures among all relevant stakeholders relating to missing migrants, and in some instances, even within countries, there is a lack of information sharing. Moreover, fragmentation, lack of a coordinated and standardized investigative/forensic approach, mistrust, and lack of contextual knowledge impair the effective identification of missing migrants from Africa.

Groundbreaking initiatives such as the Border Project (Proyecto Frontera) have sought to identify missing migrants from Central America. However, there have been very few efforts to understand migration routes from sub-Saharan Africa to Southwest Europe, and to develop a systematic framework for tracing and sharing information about missing and deceased migrants. As a result, families searching for their loved ones spend years waiting for answers. This project seeks to fill that vital gap and jumpstart work developing a comprehensive framework to address the needs of missing and deceased migrants. This year, IRC and the Global Human Rights Clinic (GHRC) worked with our partner, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), to pilot the Border Project in parts of Africa.

Students and faculty traveled to Morocco in November 2024 to meet with one community organization, Association d’Aide aux Migrants en Situation Vulnérable (AMSV) to help launch the pilot project. Students and faculty also travelled to Kenya in December for a meeting of relevant stakeholders. The work is ongoing.

Amicus Brief in Ruderman v. Kenosha (Seventh Circuit)

IRC wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the National Immigrant Law Center in a case in the Seventh Circuit that raised the question of whether civil immigration detainees are protected by the Trafficking Victims Protect Act and the prohibition on forced labor. The amicus brief detailed the history and law surrounding immigration detention in the United States and argued that civil immigration detention is functionally and legally different from criminal incarceration. The case will be argued in September 2025.

Asylum Clinics with the Hyde Park Refugee Project (HPRP)

IRC responded to the overwhelming need of Venezuelan migrants who have arrived in Chicago since September 2022 and conducted four legal clinics during the 2024-2025 academic year. At these clinics, law students assisted migrants living in Hyde Park and Woodlawn with applications for work authorization, Temporary Protected Status, and asylum. IRC was also able to take on the full representation of several people who had particularly strong claims for asylum. Overall, IRC assisted dozens of people in filing applications for benefits and relief from removal.

Know-Your-Rights Trainings with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR)

A team of three students conducted a series of know-your-rights presentations to members of the University of Chicago community, community organizations, hospitals, and schools. The team also produced a series of guides explaining what rights Illinois residents enjoy when they encounter federal immigration officers. The first provides guidance to private establishments such as nonprofits, businesses, and places of worship. The second provides guidance to K-12 schools in Illinois. The third is a shorter guide for use in any location.