The Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (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 18 students (including 8 continuing students) this academic year. In August 2026, IRC will welcome the inaugural Jacob Logan Fox fellow to teach in the clinic.

South Shore Raids FTCA Claims

Shortly after midnight on or about September 30, 2025, approximately 300 federal law enforcement officers from DHS, ATF, and the FBI executed a military-style raid on a 130-unit, five-story apartment complex located at 7500 S. South Shore Drive, Chicago, IL, 60649.1 The DHS agents included members of two tactical units: the Border Patrol Tactical Unit—the agency’s elite SWAT division—and a special response team of Customs and Border Protection officers who usually work at ports of entry. The agents were masked and wearing tactical gear. Equipped with guns and flashbang grenades, agents surrounded the building in armored trucks and unmarked vans and rappelled onto the roof from an airborne Black Hawk military helicopter. Agents were followed by a government camera crew and drones as they carried out the operation. DHS posted video footage of the raid on social media, showing agents breaching doors and angling weapons into apartments in the complex.

Agents went door to door, forcing their way into apartments, battering down doors and cutting out deadbolts. Panicked residents hid under beds, climbed into elevator shafts, and jumped out of windows. Agents reportedly pointed their guns at residents, pulled them from their beds, restrained them with zip ties, and marched them out of the building. At least six residents reported that agents physically struck or kicked them. A law enforcement dog bit a resident, leaving blood on the floor of an apartment. In at least one apartment, agents forced a resident to his knees while his 6-year-old nephew clung to him, sobbing.

Residents reported not having enough time to clothe themselves or their children before being dragged from their apartments. Agents scrawled apartment numbers in black marker on the arms, bare chests, and foreheads of complex residents, all while a NewsNation camera invited by the government filmed the scene. Masked agents required residents to line up, asked residents for their name and country of origin, and lifted their shirts to inspect them for tattoos, asking whether they were members of Tren de Aragua. Residents appeared to be separated by race and ethnicity. Children were zip-tied to one another and separated from their parents, who were loaded into separate trucks and vans. Detainees were not told why they were being held and were not permitted to contact attorneys. Over two dozen residents reported that agents entered their apartments without judicial warrants. To date, DHS has not publicly released any judicial warrants authorizing the raid.

U.S. citizens were also caught up in the raid. Federal agents zip-tied and removed U.S citizens from their apartments, placed them in unmarked vans, and questioned them before ultimately releasing them without charges after several hours of detention. According to complex residents, agents asked U.S. citizens to verify their immigration status and asked whether they “had [arrest] warrants” before agreeing to release them.

IRC, along with the MacArthur Justice Center, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, represent 20 of the residents of the South Shore apartment building. In May 2026, IRC and co-counsel filed administrative complaints under the Federal Tort Claims Act seeking damages for the unlawful arrests. A federal lawsuit will follow once the six-month waiting period has elapsed.

Press Coverage

Melissa Sanchez, Jodi Cohen, and Mariam Elba, Immigrants Detained in Chicago Military-Style Raid Seek Millions in Damages, Pro Publica, May 13, 2026.

Esther Yoon-Ji Kang, Jon Seidel, and Sophie Sherry, Residents of South Shore apartment complex push to sue feds over military-style immigration raid, WBEZ Chicago, May 13, 2026.

Meg Anderson, ICE is Spending Millions of Dollars on Iris Scanners, Expanding Its Arsenal of Tech Tools, NPR, May 27, 2026.

Immigration Habeas Project

Since January 2025, the number of immigrants in detention has skyrocketed. In many cases, the government has reinterpreted long-standing detention authorities to allow mandatory detention of many individuals with no criminal record.

This year, an intrepid team of IRC students filed three habeas petitions in district courts in Indiana, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Two of those habeas petitions were granted and the third remains pending. In addition, IRC consulted with pro bono attorneys who handled additional successful habeas petitions.

In one case, Montero Mora v. Kelley, after the habeas petition was granted, IRC filed three motions to enforce after an immigration judge sitting in Otero, New Mexico repeatedly refused to comply with the district court’s order. As IRC argued in its motion to enforce, “[c]ontrary to what [the immigration judge] appears to believe, it is this Court, and not an executive branch officer, who decides whether Mr. Montero Mora is unlawfully detained.” The Court unsurprisingly agreed.

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

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.

In August 2025, Mr. Trabelsi was finally allowed to return to his family in Belgium, where he remains to this day. ““I am so blessed to finally have my freedom after 24 years. My family has been waiting so long and we can now be together and start a new chapter in our lives,” Mr. Trabelsi said after his release.

Press Coverage

Press Release: Acquitted Soccer Play Free to Reunite With Family in Belgium After Over a Decade in Solitary Confinement, Oct. 22, 2025.

Rachel Weiner, Accused of terrorism, soccer player is ‘a free man’ but still in limbo, Wash. Post, July 17, 2023.

Salvador Rizzo, Tunisian man in U.S. custody sues a year after acquittal on terrorism charges, Wash. Post, August 28, 2024.

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 was argued in September 2025 and in June 2026, the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of the immigration detainees. The court held that “nothing in either the text or context of [the TVPA] permits a local jail to compel civil detainees—persons not subject to punishment—to work on pain of solitary confinement or loss of phone contact with the outside world.” Ruderman v. Kenosha Cnty., Wisconsin, 2026 WL 1623031, at *3 (7th Cir. June 5, 2026).

Human Rights of Migrant (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. This year, IRC and GHRC have begun drafting “Guiding Principles on Rights of and Obligations to Missing Migrants” which will then be presented to international bodies and U.N. member states for adoption.

In addition, IRC and GHRC have remained engaged in protecting the rights of migrants and non-citizens in the United States. In Spring 2025, the clinics submitted a complaint to multiple U.S. Special Rapporteurs on the targeting of non-citizen students for political speech by the Trump Administration. The Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders subsequently issued a communication to the United States and several U.S. universities regarding the human rights violations in December 2025. In Fall 2026, IRC and GHRC submitted a complaint to the Special Rapporteur for the Independence of Lawyers and Judges on behalf of immigration lawyers and judges targeted by the Trump Administration. Max Bearinger and Danica Choi published an article in Lawfare discussing the allegations in the complaint.

Illinois Accountability Commission

On October 23, 2025, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker established the Illinois Accountability Commission, an independent board tasked with capturing and creating a public record of the conduct of federal law enforcement agents and recommending actions to hold the federal government accountable for abuses committed during Operation Midway Blitz. As part of its broader mission, the Commission operated with the following goals:

• Gather additional information and documentation, to the extent possible, of the actions of federal law enforcement and the impact of those actions, including through testimony;
• Create a public record, including through public hearings, to document the conduct of federal officers during “Operation Midway Blitz” and its impact on Illinois residents;
• Analyze the documented conduct of federal officers during “Operation Midway Blitz” and identify conduct requiring the most urgent corrective action and remediation based on its impact on the community and the egregiousness of the conduct;
• Make recommendations for law or policy changes to ensure greater protection for Illinois residents from violations of their rights and to ensure community safety; and
• Refer, as appropriate, information or reports of potential violations of law to the agencies or entities responsible for investigating or enforcing such violations.

IRC was recruited by the Governor’s Office to provide investigatory and legal support for the Commission. IRC students interviewed witnesses, reviewed video evidence, conducted legal research, attended public listening sessions, drafted investigatory briefs, and wrote public testimony for Commissioners. The IAC published a final report that provided a comprehensive account of what occurred during Operation Midway Blitz on April 30, 2026.

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 represented a family from Mexico who were targeted by a cartel for one member of the family’s anti-corruption work. In November 2025, all 8 members of the family were granted asylum in the Chicago Immigration Court.
• IRC represents an Iranian woman applying for asylum on the basis of her activism and support for women’s rights. In May 2026, IRC filed a mandamus petition on her behalf in order to force the government to make a decision on her case, which had been placed on hold due to administration policies.
• 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. In June 2026, she received a prima facie determination of eligibility, which will give her protection from deportation and work authorization.
• IRC represents a woman from South Sudan on her asylum claim based on her fear of forced marriage. She had her interview with USCIS in December 2025 and she awaits a decision.
• IRC represents an LGBTQ+ man from Venezuela on his asylum claim. The student team is working to prepare his case for trial, which is scheduled for July 2027.
• IRC represents three members of a family who were previous recipients of T visas, a special visa for human trafficking victims, apply for their green cards. Their applications remain pending.
• IRC represents two brothers with approved applications for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status apply for their green cards. Their applications remain pending.