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In June 2013, a class action lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of nine Mexican nationals and three immigrant advocacy organizations who challenged deceptive tactics used by Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to convince the plaintiffs to sign their own expulsion orders. All of the plaintiffs would have had strong claims to remain in the United States had they gone before an immigration judge instead of being pressured to choose "voluntary departure," one of the many ways that the government can swiftly expel someone from the country without a hearing.

Utah was one of five states to pass anti-immigrant laws in 2011. The Utah state legislature approved HB 497 in March, 2011 which, among other provisions, authorized local law enforcement officers to verify the immigration status of individuals they stop, made it a crime to transport or harbor undocumented immigrants, and allowed for the warrantless arrest of individuals an officer has reasonable cause to believe are subject to federal immigration deportation orders.

In December 2010, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project filed suit in an Allentown, PA federal court on behalf of Ernesto Galarza, a New Jersey-born U.S. citizen of Puerto Rican descent who was held illegally for three days in the Lehigh County Prison. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents requested his detention on the baseless assertion that he might be an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic.