When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone’s rights are at risk. For 25 years the ACLU has been committed to protecting the rights and liberties of immigrants, and has been at the forefront of almost every major legal struggle on behalf of immigrants’ rights. The ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project is dedicated to expanding and enforcing the civil liberties and civil rights of immigrants and to combating public and private discrimination using targeted impact litigation, advocacy and public outreach. Learn more at www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights.

On March 29, 2013 in a case brought by the ACLU of Indiana affecting potentially all of Indiana’s non-citizens, a federal judge issued an order blocking portions of Indiana’s immigration law, Senate Enrolled Act 590, and declaring it unconstitutional. A second order issued by the Judge denied a motion by three state senators to intervene in the case. The decisions reinforce the proposition that immigration is the sole province of the federal government, and that states lack an enforcement role. In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker said the law "runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment" because it authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to "effect warrantless arrests for matters that are not crimes." Judge Barker had previously issued a preliminary injunction against the law, passed in 2011, and it never went into effect. SEA 590 permitted local law enforcement officers to make warrantless arrests of people in possession of certain immigration-related documents, even though the possession of those documents is not a crime. The law also made the use of identification cards issued by consulates of foreign countries illegal. SEA 590 was similar to an Arizona law that in 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional.