The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado and migrant advocates filed a lawsuit against three Trump administration officials on Thursday, alleging that federal immigration officers are violating the law in arresting migrants in the state. 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado, lists Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons and ICE’s Denver field office Director Robert Guadian as defendants. 

Citing the cases of four migrants who have been detained by ICE in Colorado this year, the ACLU suit attests that ICE officers are ignoring Title 8, Section 1357 of the U.S. Code. The statute requires that federal immigration officials have probable cause to believe an individual is in the country illegally and likely to escape before a warrant is obtained in order to arrest them.

When reached for comment, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told The Hill that the department “complies with all lawful court orders and is addressing this matter with the court.”

According to the latest ICE data, officers from the Denver field office have arrested 15,756 individuals across their jurisdiction in Wyoming and Colorado. According to the complaint, ICE arrested nearly 2,000 individuals in Colorado in the first half of the year.

The ACLU and advocates filed the lawsuit on behalf of 43-year-old Refugio Ramirez Ovando, 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves, 36-year-old J.S.T. and 32-year-old G.R.R. All four have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and were detained by ICE officers earlier this year. 

Ramirez was detained without a warrant in May and held at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colo. for more than three months, before an officer admitted to mistaking him for someone else. Dias Goncalves, a student at the University of Utah, was arrested by ICE officers while driving in June and spent 15 days at the Aurora facility.

J.S.T., going by a pseudonym, was arrested at his apartment complex in February and spent four weeks in the Aurora facility. G.R.R., also going by a pseudonym, was detained by ICE during an April raid at a nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo. He later spent six weeks in Aurora. 

The lawsuit claims that instead of following immigration law, ICE is “scrambling to fill arbitrary quotes set by the Administration, causing chaos and terror in neighborhoods throughout Colorado.” It adds that the roughly 169,000 immigrants without legal status and other Latinos in the state “now live in fear and at daily risk because of federal immigration agents’ indiscriminate practices.”

In May, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said the administration’s goal is for ICE to arrest 3,000 individuals per day.

“ICE’s arrest scheme is tearing families apart and terrorizing communities,” the suit added.

Updated at 9:16 p.m. EDT.

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