Court Battles

Immigrants sue over Trump administration biometric data policy

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by Ryan Mancini - 05/01/26 6:00 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 05/01/26 6:00 PM ET

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A group of six immigrants in U.S. detention on Thursday sued the Trump administration over its policy barring detained migrants from completing biometric data processes that cause their immigration applications to be denied.

The complaint argues that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created a system that “requires individuals to submit biometrics as part of their applications for immigration relief, while simultaneously refusing to collect that information from people in detention centers,” the advocacy group Democracy Forward said in a statement.

This has caused eligible immigrants to be denied the chance to go through the legal means to attain a lawful immigration status through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), including for victims of human trafficking and abuse along with those seeking to reunite with family members.

Immigration applications are denied without completing biometric processes, including fingerprints and photos, for them.

Lawyers with Democracy Forward, as well as the National Immigration Project and the National Immigrant Justice Center, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of the migrants.

“Without this Court’s intervention, Plaintiffs and the class will face irreparable harm,” the suit states. “They will lose their right to pursue lawful immigration status before being deported, and some will face prolonged detention when relief would have otherwise led to their release.”

The Hill has reached out to the DHS for comment.

The detained immigrants face being separated from their families and “abuse or persecution in their countries of origin.”

“In short, they will face the very harms that Congress designed these paths to immigration relief to prevent,” the complaint also reads.

The plaintiffs include citizens from Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba and Iran.

“The government didn’t stumble into this outcome. They engineered it,” Michelle Mendez, National Immigration Project legal resources and training director, said in Democracy Forward’s statement.

“Require biometrics, refuse to collect them, then punish people for the gap you created,” she said. “That’s not administration; that’s a trap. A deliberately broken prcess they’re now citing as proof that people eligible for benefits and protections deserve to be deported. We’re asking the court to see this scheme for exactly what it is.”

The Trump administration has deployed a wide range of technologies to be used in enforcing its deportation agenda, with funding provided by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act used to invest in tracking technologies capable of following migrants and U.S. citizens.

But Democratic lawmakers have pushed back, introducing bills to ban federal immigration enforcement agencies from using facial recognition technology and other biometric identification systems.

Civil rights advocates have for years called into question the use of these technologies over concerns that they are less effective and could lead to the wrongful arrests and convictions of women and people of color.

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