Lawsuit claims ICE withheld $300M in bond payments from immigrants
MIAMI– U.S. immigration authorities illegally withheld more than $300 million in bonds from tens of thousands of low-income immigrant families and U.S. citizens, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement held the money so long that $240 million was transferred to a U.S. Treasury Department account for unclaimed funds, said Motley Rice LLC, one of the companies that filed the lawsuit with the federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The lawsuit, which addresses longstanding complaints, seeks class-action status for those who paid cash to rescue family members detained by ICE. Motley Rice, a firm that represents clients in a wide range of class action lawsuits, said it has been investigating the issue for two years.
Immigration bonds are set by ICE and immigration judges and allow this non-citizens facing removal proceedings are released into the US while their cases are decided by the courts. According to the lawsuit, the average bail amount is $6,000.
Based on information obtained through public records requests and other matters, there are tens of thousands of class members, the lawsuit alleges. “The precise number and identification of the group’s members will be deducible from government data,” the report says.
Once the immigration case is completed, family and friends of the detainees have the right to get their money back. However, ICE regularly fails to return these funds even when all conditions have been met and the process has been completed,” the lawsuit states.
ICE declined to comment, saying no pending lawsuits are being discussed.
The case filed this week is on behalf of Douglas Cortez of Uniondale, New York, who posted $10,000 bail to have his friend released from detention. In August 2023, his friend’s procedure was dismissed, but over a year later, Cortez still has not received a notice of default and has not received a refund for the cash deposit he made.
“They took thousands of dollars from hardworking immigrant families who deserve to get their money back,” said Deepak Gupta, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit. “We want ICE to fix this system, we want the court to declare that ICE is violating its legal obligations under the contract so that this doesn’t happen again to other families in the future.”
Gupta said they arrived at the $300 million figure after carefully reviewing government documents obtained through FOIA requests and court filings.
Ada Salazar, 28, did not receive her money after her uncle deposited $5,000 in February 2016. She is from El Salvador, was granted legal status in 2021 and is now ready to join the lawsuit.
“I hope to get the money back, that’s the promise they made,” Salazar, mother of a 6-year-old and owner of a food truck in North Carolina, told The Associated Press.