A coalition of leading civil rights scholars, legal advocates, and nonprofit organizations filed an amicus curiae brief on August 12, 2025 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of a constitutional challenge to Arkansas’s alien land laws—Act 636 and Act 174. These laws, which restrict land ownership by so-called “foreign parties” or “foreign-party businesses,” have been criticized for discriminating on the basis of race and national origin and conflicting with federal immigration law. Read full statement here.
News reports of noncitizens unexpectedly being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have dominated headlines in recent weeks. Those being detained include noncitizens who hold lawful permanent residency status. One story concerns the March 8, 2025, arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent Columbia University graduate, who was initially detained in New Jersey and transported to Louisiana. He remains there while he challenges his detention and the immigration judge’s April 11 decision that he can be deported And on March 25, ICE agents arrested Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University, while she was walking […]
NEWARK – The state directive limiting cooperation by New Jersey police agencies with federal enforcement of civil immigration violations slightly reduced the number of people going from jails to federal custody and deportation though isn’t being followed consistently, says a new report out of Rutgers Law School. A study released at a Tuesday symposium said the number of removals of unauthorized immigrants through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was down slightly in 2020 for people with the most serious convictions and basically level for people without them. There was a notable decline in removals through the Secure Communities fingerprint and […]
The President of RU Dreamers, Esder Chong, and Chancellor of Rutgers University, Newark, Nancy Cantor, wrote a compelling op-ed, advocating for the State of New Jersey to allow young undocumented immigrants to be able to apply for drivers licenses. As they wrote, “This is not the time to slow down on opening up access to education and opportunity to young immigrants. Instead, let’s speed up to allow all qualified residents to access a driver’s license regardless of immigration status. These students are our next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, and change-makers who deserve a fair chance to pursue their educational […]
On November 28, 2018, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued the “Immigrant Trust Directive,” which is intended to limit the types of voluntary assistance that state and local law enforcement may provide to federal immigration law enforcement authorities. A summary of the directive is available here.