Maryland residents sue ICE over alleged warrantless arrests

The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges immigration officers have arrested thousands of people without warrants or the probable cause required under federal law.

Four Maryland residents and the immigrant rights group We Are CASA have filed a proposed federal class-action lawsuit seeking to stop alleged warrantless immigration arrests by ICE.

The lawsuit comes as TheGrio has reported on a surge in street arrests affecting Black immigrants and a recent Maryland airport detention involving Johns Hopkins researcher Fatima Ameaka.

The case, Guzmán v. DHS, was filed Sept. 9 in U.S. District Court in Maryland. It challenges what the plaintiffs call an “arrest first, ask questions later” policy and asks a judge to declare the practice unlawful, block it while the case proceeds, and require ICE to comply with federal law and the Fourth Amendment.

Federal law permits an immigration arrest without a warrant only when an officer has probable cause to believe a person is in the country unlawfully and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained. The lawsuit alleges ICE agents in Maryland have routinely skipped those determinations.

The complaint says that nearly 7,000 arrests have been made under the challenged practice since January 2025. Plaintiffs accuse agents of following work trucks in unmarked vehicles, boxing in cars, smashing windows and detaining people without first establishing who they are or whether they pose a flight risk.

Samuel Guzmán, 24, is among the named plaintiffs. Guzmán, who was born in Maryland and is a U.S. citizen, alleges masked ICE officers surrounded him outside a 7-Eleven in Annapolis, handcuffed him and held him for more than an hour. He says an officer questioned why he did not speak better English after he said he was an American citizen.

The lawsuit also includes a Latino man identified as J.M.R., who alleges agents pulled him from his car, threw him to the ground and shocked him with a Taser before detaining him. A federal judge later ruled his detention unlawful and ordered his release.

The Washington Post reported that attorneys for the plaintiffs say the enforcement is placing Black, Latino, Afro-descendant and immigrant Marylanders in fear of arbitrary arrest. DHS rejected allegations of racial profiling, saying immigration status, not race or ethnicity, determines who is targeted for enforcement.

The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction and class certification. The allegations have not been adjudicated, and the case remains pending in federal court.