Immigration Impact Lab
Every day, the immigration system fails children and adults who are detained.
Our Immigration Impact Lab (“The Lab”) responds to these failings, strategically appealing cases, developing impact litigation, and launching advocacy efforts that have the potential to transform the system and establish new legal precedents for immigrants nationwide.
Our approach
How we build a better future one case at a time.
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Step 1: Individual Harm and Need Response
The Lab begins by responding to concrete harms experienced by detained children and adults navigating a deeply flawed immigration system. These individual cases surface systemic problems that demand broader legal intervention and position our clients to seek justice for themselves and others.
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Step 2: Impact Litigation
The Lab transforms patterns of harm that emerge through individual cases into strategic impact litigation. We bring group and class action lawsuits in federal district courts and appeals in federal courts of appeals to challenge unlawful policies, practices, and interpretations of immigration law.
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Step 3: Broad Impact and Precedent
Successful impact litigation creates binding precedent and policy changes that reach far beyond any single case. These decisions shape how immigration courts and agencies operate nationwide, expanding access to due process and legal protections for thousands of people. Through this work, the Lab helps move the immigration system toward greater fairness, accountability, and humanity.
Major wins
Building a more welcoming world, one case at a time.
Our cases reach across the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, beyond. We’ve litigated, co-counseled, mentored, and provided amicus curiae support in a range of matters that have changed the system for the better.
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01
CLSEPA v. HHS
No. 3:25-cv-2847, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___ (N.D.Cal. filed 2025)
(co-counsel with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Justice Action Center, and Gibson Dunn)Challenging the federal government’s attempted termination of legal services for unaccompanied children and defending access to counsel for tens of thousands of children navigating the immigration system alone.
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02
Escobar Molina v. DHS
No. 1:25-cv-03417, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___ (D.D.C. filed 2025) (co-counsel with American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, American Civil Liberties Union, Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, CASA, National Immigration Project, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP)
Challenging ICE’s practice of warrantless and unlawful immigration arrests in Washington, DC to enforce statutory limits on federal enforcement authority and put an end to widespread and indiscriminate arrest in the city.
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03
American Gateways v. DOJ
No. 1:25-cv-01370, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___ (D.D.C. filed 2025) (co-counsel with National Immigrant Justice Center and Zuckerman Spaeder)
Sued the Department of Justice for unlawfully dismantling the National Qualified Representative Program, which provides legal representation to individuals who have mental health, cognitive, or developmental disabilities that an immigration judge determines would prevent them from meaningfully participating in their immigration court proceedings without counsel.
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04
D.N.N. v. Baker
No. 1:25-cv-01500, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___ (D. Md. filed 2025) (co-counsel with National Immigration Project and Crowell & Morring)
Challenging unconstitutional conditions and prolonged detention at the Baltimore Holding Rooms, securing protections for people subjected to unlawful immigration detention practices.
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05
Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coal v. Trump
471 F. Supp. 3d 25 (D.D.C. 2020) (co-counseled with Hogan Lovells, RAICES, and Human Rights First)
This case knocked down one of the Trump Administration’s primary national asylum bans, which would have banned asylum for anyone who crossed through a third country on the way to the U.S. and did not first seek asylum there.
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06
Rodriguez Guerra v. Perry
1:23-cv-1151 (E.D. Va. 2024)
This class action settlement agreement established a procedure for ICE to promptly review the custody of non-citizens granted fear-based protection from deportation, leading to the release of more than 20 people.
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07
Quintero v. Garland
998 F.3d 612 (4th Cir. 2021)
This case established the duty of immigration judges to develop the record when an immigrant lacks an attorney—a landmark decision for the rights of pro se immigrants unrepresented by counsel, which includes the majority of individuals who ICE holds in immigration detention.
Strategic advocacy
Pushing for change outside of the courtroom.
In addition to our legal work, The Lab also strives to educate members of Congress, advocate for immigration agencies to change their policies, and shape public opinion in support of meaningful policy change that benefits current and future immigrants to the United States.
Refer a case
Want us to take a case on your client’s behalf?
Contact us at lab@amicacenter.org to refer a BIA appeal, circuit petition for review, or habeas case to The Lab. Please note that our focus is on issues that impact people at risk of detention and deportation. We can only take a limited number of cases, and we don’t accept referrals for immigration court cases or United States Citizenship and Immigration Services matters.
Have questions?
Our team is here to help.
If you have questions about our Immigration Impact Lab, please contact Adina Appelbaum, Program Director, at lab@amicacenter.org. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
More programs
Explore more of our nationally recognized work to see how we’re creating a more just immigration system and ensuring people who are detained have access to due process and expert legal representation.
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