This case challenges the executive branch’s sudden closure of three oversight offices within the Department of Homeland Security that Congress mandated be created, funded, and staffed in order to safeguard the public’s civil rights and liberties and protect it from harms caused by agency error or wrongdoing.

Congress sought to carefully balance national security with protection of privacy interests and civil rights with the passage of the Homeland Security Act in 2002 and subsequent amendments. To do so, it created three offices within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect individual rights and interests: the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman Office, and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO). Each year, these agencies collectively investigate hundreds of complaints on issues including collection of DNA samples by Border Patrol agents, racial profiling during investigatory stops, and sexual assault in detention facilities.

But in early March 2025, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem placed nearly all employees of CRCL, the CIS Ombudsman Office, and OIDO on administrative leave, with separation dates of May 23, 2025. A DHS spokesperson stated that the executive branch offices were closed because they are “internal adversaries that slow down operations.”

Why is this a key case?

Official oversight and accountability mechanisms are a crucial step on the road to ending arbitrary immigration detention and the human rights abuses that occur there.

A group of 49 members of Congress decried the closure of DHS oversight offices, especially in light of the “inhumane” and “alarming” conditions in immigration detention. They noted that the “elimination of oversight mechanisms leaves individuals . . . without recourse, undermines transparency, and erodes public trust in the Department’s ability to uphold basic human rights and responsibly manage billions of taxpayer dollars.”

Moreover, this case reaffirms the checks and balances between legislative and executive authority crucial to the rule of law in the United States. Under the U.S. Constitution, no president has the power to unilaterally rewrite laws that Congress created to protect people from human rights abuses by the federal government.

What is the status of this case?

Pending before the district court.

April 24, 2025