Prompted by press reports about the policy shift, nonprofits Carolina Migrant Network and Amica Center for Immigrant Rights sought a June 9 memo and related field guidance containing a directive to place ankle monitors on everyone enrolled in the program, except pregnant women, according to their suit.
The groups first sought the documents, which they said have not been made public yet, through a Freedom of Information Act request filed Oct. 28, but sued after the agency failed to act on the request, they said.
The groups say ICE "has a great deal of discretion" to release immigrants with pending immigration court hearings into the community through the Alternatives to Detention, or ATD, program, which uses various forms of monitoring to ensure immigrants show up to those hearings.
Carolina Migrant Network and Amica says the program has ballooned over the past five years, with 181,000 immigrants enrolled as of December, nearly three times the number of detained immigrants.
Of those enrolled in the program, the groups said 36,000 are wearing ankle monitors, double the number as of the end of 2024.
Even though ICE has said the ATD program is meant to boost compliance, the groups cited reports showing that enrollees actually have lower compliance rates. They also said the use of ankle monitors inflicts serious financial, physical and psychological harms, disrupting day-to-day life and at times causing injuries and worsening health conditions.
A study cited in the complaint found that 60% of ATD program participants wearing ankle monitors reported severe "impact" to their health, the groups said.
"As media reporting on ATD makes apparent, ICE's true purpose in imposing a blanket 'ankle monitoring for all' policy is the goal of coercing noncitizens into accepting 'voluntary' deportation," they said.
F. Evan Benz of Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, one of the attorneys for the groups, said the lawsuit was filed out of concern about "ICE's indiscriminate use of ankle monitors."
"Ankle monitors cause serious harm to the people forced to wear them and have been shown to be counterproductive to ICE's stated goals. So, it is unclear what good reason they would have to adopt an ankle monitors for all' policy," Benz said. "ICE should have released their new policy publicly, and they should have responded quickly to our information request, but because they have done neither, we had to resort to this lawsuit."
ICE did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Carolina Migrant Network and Amica are represented by Daniel Melo of The Melo Law Firm PLLC, and F. Evan Benz of Amica Center for Immigrant Rights.
Counsel information for ICE was not immediately available.
The case is Carolina Migrant Network et al. v. Immigration Customs Enforcement, case number 3:26-cv-00028, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
Update: This article has been updated with a comment from counsel for the plaintiffs.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
