The ACLU of Massachusetts, together with the lawfirm Goodwin Procter and Lawyers for Civil Rights, filed a lawsuit in September 2019 challenging the Trump administration’s abrupt termination of a program that protects seriously ill people from deportation and death.
The plaintiff, Rian Immigrant Center (formerly the Irish International Immigrant Center) is a nonprofit that provides legal and other services to noncitizens. When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) terminated its medical deferred action program in August 2019, the Rian Immigrant Center was representing 19 individuals and families in Massachusetts who had deferred action or were applying for it based on a serious medical need. Deferred action provides some protection from deportation and allows people to apply for work authorization while they or their loved ones receive lifesaving treatment. The Rian Immigrant Center’s deferred action clients include children seeking treatment for illnesses such as cancer, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy — and the parents who care for them.
For decades, USCIS granted deferred action to immigrants with serious medical needs, but in August 2019 the agency suddenly ended this program. In letters to Rian Immigrant Center clients and others around the country, USCIS declared that its offices “no longer consider deferred action requests” other than those associated with certain policies for military families. Then, on September 2, 2019, USCIS promised to consider deferred action requests — but only those submitted before August 7. USCIS gave no explanation for these decisions.
The termination of USCIS’s deferred action program has been devastating to Rian Immigrant Center's clients, who face impossible choices about whether and how they will continue life-saving treatment for their loved ones. What’s more, as argued in the Complaint, the decision appeared motivated by racism. News of the termination of deferred action for Rian Immigrant Center's seriously ill clients followed a string of Trump Administration policies targeted at keeping out non-white immigrants, and came on the heels of comments by USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli applying the words on the Statue of Liberty to immigrants “from Europe.” Nearly all of Rian Immigrant Center's clients are people of color from countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Africa.
Because the termination of USCIS’s deferred action program is arbitrary, capricious, and based on racial and other animus, it violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Equal Protection guarantee of the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU is asking a federal court to declare the termination unlawful and to ensure the continuation of this life-saving program.
UPDATE: After this lawsuit was filed, the government announced that USCIS had reinstated the deferred action process that existed prior to August 2019. After a brief stay of the litigation, the government moved to dismiss the case on grounds of mootness, and on other grounds; the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss on mootness grounds. Later, in June 2021, the ACLU and other groups voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
Media:
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'It's Scarier Than Having A Surgery': A Year Later, Uncertainty Around Medical Deferrals Remains | WBUR
- Trump admin sued over deportation of ailing kids and families | MSNBC
- Lawsuit seeks to halt termination of immigrant medical care | Commonwealth Magazine
- Civil Rights Advocates Sue Trump Administration Over Medical Deferred Action | WBUR
- Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration Over Immigrant Medical Care | Huffington Post
- Civil rights groups sue Trump admin over 'abrupt termination' of deportation relief for sick people | Daily Kos
- Mass. groups sue to stop policy change that would deport families of seriously ill children | Boston Globe
- Mass. lawyers file lawsuit challenging end of medical deferred action for foreign patients seeking treatment at U.S. hospitals | MassLive
- Civil rights groups file lawsuit against end to deportation relief for medical conditions | CNN
- Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration Over Immigrant Health Care Decision | Time
- Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over immigrant medical care cases | The Hill
