Jean A. v. Noem: Challenging the Trump administration’s nationwide detention of refugees

The Trump administration is systematically implementing policies that are hostile to refugees, with the end goal of terminating their refugee status and expelling refugees en masse. Although enforcement operations against refugees have primarily targeted Minnesota, multiple statements and memoranda from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials make clear that the endgame of the government’s actions is to trigger a mass termination of refugee status and to render refugees vulnerable to removal nationwide. This goal represents an egregious and unlawful betrayal of the promise made to refugees, based on the Refugee Act of 1980, to offer them safety and stability in the United States.

Specifically, on December 18, 2025, the Acting Executive Associate Director for ICE, Marcos Charles, issued a directive rescinding a 2010 Policy that prohibited the detention of refugees solely on the basis that they had not adjusted status. Furthermore, on February 18, 2026, USCIS and ICE jointly issued a memorandum which purported to provide legal justification for rescinding the 2010 Policy and mandating potentially indefinite detention of all unadjusted refugees present more than one year.

IRAP is counsel in a lawsuit representing a group of refugees who seek to bring the case as a class action on behalf of themselves and similarly situated refugees across the country.  The plaintiffs are seeking to end DHS’s illegal policy of arresting and detaining lawfully present refugees.

Our clients

Plaintiffs include six refugees from various countries who have been detained or are at imminent risk of detention under this policy. Plaintiffs and their families were lawfully admitted to the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (“USRAP”) after comprehensive security vetting and are not subject to any ground of removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). Still, they are being subjected to or fear DHS’s illegal, discriminatory, and cruel policy of refugee detention.

This lawsuit also includes organizational Plaintiffs International Institute of New England and Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, whose core missions include serving resettled refugees, and who face a certain depletion and diversion of resources needed to address the crisis of their client communities facing mass interrogation, arrest, and unlimited detention.

Impact

It is estimated that there are over 100,000 unadjusted refugees are in the United States who would be subject to detention under this policy. Refugees targeted by this policy are at risk of being detained without cause, and will be irreparably harmed by being separated from their families and communities, held in detention with no legal basis, deprived of work and other opportunities, suffer worsening medical and psychological conditions, and potentially face removal to the very dangers from which they fled.

Case status

• February 27 2026: Case is filed in United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (“Court” or “District Court”).
• March 23, 2026: Court issued an order granting Plaintiff’s motion to stay.

Democracy Forward Foundation is co-counsel in this lawsuit.