An immigrant rights advocacy group filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of four Maryland residents who want to stop what they say are unlawful arrests by immigration agents.
We Are CASA, a national group headquartered in Maryland, said the four residents represent all the people in Maryland who have been arrested on alleged immigration violations without a warrant or reason to suspect they are in the country illegally. Two of the residents represented in the lawsuit were arrested in Silver Spring, the others in Annapolis and Eastern Shore.
The group also asked for an injunction to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from performing warrantless arrests while the courts weigh the case.
ICE has employed “disturbing tactics” to make arrests, such as smashing car windows and using unmarked vehicles to tail people, as the Trump administration seeks to deport “as many immigrants as possible,” according to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
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Government records compiled by the Deportation Data Project, a collaboration between University of California Berkeley and the University of California Los Angeles, show more than 4,900 ICE arrests were made in Maryland in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. The year before, ICE made less than 1,500 arrests in the state.
“These agents have indiscriminately stalked neighborhoods, arresting community members whom they perceive to be Brown or Black immigrants without warrants and without probable cause. This is racial profiling,” Shana Khader, We Are CASA’s legal director, said in a statement.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to The Sun that immigration officers target people who are unlawfully in the U.S., not specific skin colors, races or ethnicities. It called allegations otherwise “disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.”
The 56-page lawsuit details the personal stories of the four Maryland residents, who are some of thousands who have been targeted by ICE in recent months. Three of them are identified only by their initials. The complaint recounts the details of their arrests and subsequent release from ICE custody, with accusations of tasings, beatings and failure to properly establish reason for arrest.
Several more advocacy groups are co-counsels on the case, including the Amica Center for Immigration Rights, the ACLU of Maryland and the National Immigration Project.
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