Court Cases

Sabina Carmona-Lorenzo had been in the United States for more than 20 years when she was detained by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents in the June 2025 raid at Glen Valley Foods in Omaha. She and her husband have five children, all of whom are U.S. citizens. The oldest is serving in the military. Although an immigration court judge granted Carmona-Lorenzo release on bond in July, she remained in detention due to an automatic stay issued by ICE . We filed a lawsuit on her behalf, arguing that her continued detention extended beyond ICE's legal authority and violated her right to due process. At a September hearing, a federal judge ruled from the bench, siding with our arguments and granting Carmona-Lorenzo release on bond. She is now back with her family.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained Maria Reynosa Jacinto in the June 2025 Omaha Glenn Valley Foods worksite raid. In July, an Omaha immigration court judge set Reynosa Jacinto’s bond at $9,000. When the Prairielands Freedom Fund tried to post bond for her, they learned ICE had issued an automatic stay on her release, blocking her bond from being posted. Reyosa Jacinto v. Trump argued that ICE's automatic stay unlawfully violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and extended beyond ICE’s authority by overriding an immigration court judge’s individualized decision on bond, making any considerations of danger or flight risk meaningless, and allowing lengthy and potentially indefinite detention. A judge sided with our client, ruling that she was being held unlawfully and must be released on bond.

Less than four months before the 2024 presidential election, Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen issued a directive that barred access to the ballot for eligible Nebraskans with past felony convictions. The directive followed recent progress. Since 2005, Nebraskans with past felony convictions had been legally able to vote two years after completing all terms of their felony sentence. In 2024, the Nebraska Legislature passed a law that removed the two-year wait. Before the law could go into effect, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued a non-binding opinion declaring that only the state Board of Pardons can restore voting rights, putting tens of thousands of voters' rights into question. Evnen used this opinion to unlawfully order officials to refuse to follow the law and refuse to register eligible voters with past felony convictions regardless of how much time had passed their sentence. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Nebraska, and Faegre Drinker LLP filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Nebraska Supreme Court, challenging the directive on behalf of affected individuals and Civic Nebraska, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group. On October 16, 2024, the Nebraska Supreme Court issued a writ of mandamus ordering the Secretary of State and election commissioners to follow the law and allow eligible Nebraskans to register and vote.

In August of 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided several businesses in and around O’Neill, Nebraska. Authorities took 133 people into custody in a raid based on warrants for 17 people. At the time of the raid, we criticized the operation for glaring failures to provide detainees with adequate food, water, shelter and language interpretation services. Our concerns led the Office of the Inspector General to open an investigation and interview affected community members, but officials never shared the results of that investigation. When officials ignored a public records request seeking more information on the OIG’s investigation, we turned to the court system. Shortly after we sued, federal officials turned over 77 pages of partially redacted documents, including memos of interviews with ICE agents and immigrants who had been detained. Ultimately, the OIG found that concerns of civil rights violations were unsubstantiated, a position we contend.