ACLU, ACLU of Virginia, ACLU of North Carolina sue ICE for records regarding potential expansion of immigration detention in Virginia

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Virginia, and ACLU of North Carolina today filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records regarding the agency’s potential plans to expand immigration detention across Virginia.

The lawsuit stems from ICE’s Requests for Information issued on May 28, 2025, seeking “available detention facilities" in areas covered by ICE’s Washington, D.C. Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ERO”) Field Office. The ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in August 2025 which went unanswered, prompting the ACLU to take legal action. The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration opened new ICE detention centers at a maximum-security prison in Louisiana, as well as at the Fort Bliss military base in Texas.

“The Trump administration is hastily opening new ICE detention facilities in an effort to deport as many people as possible, no matter the costs to our communities,” said Eunice Cho, senior counsel at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The public has a right to know how its taxpayer dollars are being used to expand the abusive ICE detention machine.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, demands that ICE comply with the Freedom of Information Act and immediately turn over the requested records to the ACLU. The litigation follows a series of lawsuits filed by the ACLU and its affiliates seeking details about ICE’s plans to expand detention capacity nationwide to support the Trump administration’s goal of deporting 11 million immigrants from the U.S. Already, the ACLU’s FOIA litigation has revealed critical details about ICE’s plans, including details on which current and new facilities are being considered across the Midwest, South, and West Coast.

“This lawsuit is about transparency and accountability,” said Michele Delgado, Staff Attorney, ACLU of North Carolina. “The public has a right to know how ICE is planning to expand its network of detention centers, especially when tens of thousands of people are already held in these facilities every day under conditions that raise serious human rights concerns.”

The lawsuit also comes as media reports have found inhumane conditions at the Washington D.C. ERO Field Office in Chantilly, Virginia, where dozens of immigrants have been detained in the weeks following President Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C. According to reports, people detained at the facility were only given one meal a day and denied access to their lawyers.

“The Trump administration’s determination to rip families apart has created a humanitarian crisis in ICE facilities,” said Sophia Gregg, Senior Immigrants’ Rights Attorney at the ACLU of Virginia. “ICE's solution to the dangerous, rapidly degenerating conditions in its existing facilities can’t be to replicate those conditions in new facilities that it builds in secret. ICE must be transparent and follow the law – not violate people’s civil rights and civil liberties to advance an inhumane political agenda.”