This case asks whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can surveil people with electronic tracking in defiance a judge’s order that they be released from immigration detention on bond without any further conditions.

A person can only be released on bond by an immigration judge after a hearing where an ICE attorney has opportunity to present evidence that release is not appropriate due to flight risk or danger to the community. Based on the evidence presented, the judge decides whether to grant release, and if so, on what conditions.

Under these rules, G.T. was ordered released from detention upon payment of a bond and no further conditions. But ICE was unsatisfied with those results. And instead of appealing the judge’s decision, it defied the judge’s order. After G.T. was released from detention the agency gave him an appointment to report, where officers shackled him in an ankle monitor with 24/7 electronic surveillance. G.T., a survivor of persecution and torture, feels ashamed and anxious that people in public will see the monitor and assume that he is a criminal or a terrorist. Out of embarrassment from being openly shackled and fear that he will face prejudicial or discriminatory treatment, he has stopped going to his mosque furthering his isolation and disrupting the coping mechanisms that had helped him manage his depression and PTSD.

ICE placed G.T. on electronic surveillance under a June 2025 policy that instructs ICE officials to affix GPS-enabled ankle “whenever possible” and mandates electronic surveillance without individualized consideration of the need for it. The policy stands to enrich one of the Trump administration’s largest campaign contributors, the private prison company GEO Group, which generates approximately $3.70 in daily revenue for the over 180,000 people the government says it plans to put on electronic surveillance.

What is the legal argument in this case?

ICE’s unilateral decision to place G.T. under electronic surveillance in violation of
the immigration judge’s order violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Accardi doctrine, which obligates administrative agencies to follow their own rules, and a non-statutory right against ultra vires agency action.

The policy that ICE has implemented of violating an immigration judge’s order with unwarranted electronic surveillance is also arbitrary and capricious and should be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act.

What is the status of this case?

Pending in the district court.