DENVER — The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado announced that a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Meyer Law Office is challenging a Trump administration policy that ends bond eligibility for immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The case stems from a habeas petition submitted by Alyssa Reed of Reed Immigration, LLC, on behalf of Nestor Esai Mendoza Gutierrez, a Colorado resident and longtime small business owner.
On July 8, ICE issued a policy declaring that all people allegedly entering the country without documentation would be denied eligibility for bond throughout their removal proceedings. The ACLU said this policy would impact immigrants nationwide. The lawsuit claims the policy is unlawful.
Tim Macdonald, ACLU legal director, said, “This illegal policy threatens to imprison millions of hardworking immigrants with no criminal records and deep ties to their communities, with no recourse.”
Hans Meyer of the Meyer Law Office added, “The brutality of this Trump administration policy is eclipsed only by its intellectual dishonesty and departure from decades of agency practice.”
According to the ACLU, federal law mandates detention without bond eligibility only under limited circumstances. The lawsuit maintains that Mendoza Gutierrez and others in similar situations do not meet those criteria. The organization said detaining Mendoza Gutierrez without bond eligibility raises critical constitutional concerns and violates fundamental protections that apply to everyone regardless of immigration status.
Michael Tan, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “The Constitution guarantees all persons living in the United States rights to due process under the law, full stop.” He added, “The Trump administration seeks to rewrite our constitutional bedrock, denying millions of immigrants in detention facilities the ability to seek bond. But the Constitution doesn’t allow the government to lock people up without basic due process.”
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