Seven people released from immigration detention have sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the agency keeps hold of their personal property long after custody ends and has no lawful reason to keep it. The class action, Gonzalez v. Department of Homeland Security, was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The filing matters now because the plaintiffs say the delay is not a paperwork hiccup but a pattern that leaves released detainees without the documents they need to work, travel and prove who they are. Vladimir Izmailov, who has a pending asylum claim, says ICE has kept his work authorization documents and his wedding band for more than 5 months, and that he has had to borrow money to pay rent for himself, his wife and their two children.
Izmailov said ICE refusing to return his belongings has made an already brutal experience worse. He said the agency detained him in terrible conditions, without proper nutrition and medical care for months, and that it still has his work documents even though he needs them to earn a living. He also said the wedding ring cannot be replaced, which makes the loss more than a financial problem.
The complaint says ICE has withheld a broad mix of items after release, including government-issued identification documents, passports, evidence of immigration status, employment authorization documents, Social Security cards, cell phones and cash. The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU of D.C., the ACLU of Illinois, Democracy Defenders Fund, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Platkin LLP, are asking the court to order ICE to return property it no longer has any justification to keep and to take steps to make sure it stops holding onto such items in the future.
That claim lands against a legal backdrop that the plaintiffs say is already settled by the Fourth Amendment: once the government’s reason for taking property ends, keeping it becomes a constitutional problem. In 2024, a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia ruled that the Fourth Amendment governed a similar practice by the Metropolitan Police Department, a ruling the plaintiffs point to as evidence that ICE cannot hang on to seized property simply because it once had it in its possession.
Michael Perloff said the Fourth Amendment exists so that overzealous government agents cannot take and keep property for no reason. Kevin Fee said the complaint exposes agents seizing people’s important property and then failing to return it even when people need it to fight for their cases. The court will now have to decide whether ICE’s retention of the items is an isolated failure or an agency practice that must be stopped at the source.
