Massachusetts
Lawsuit filed on behalf of immigrants fined up to $1.8 million for remaining in the country
A team of lawyers filed suit Thursday against federal authorities on behalf of immigrants facing what they called “ruinous civil fines” that reach up to $1.8 million.
Daily fines of $998, designed to encourage immigrants in the U.S. illegally to leave the country, have been imposed on more than 21,500 people who the lawyers said were trying to comply with immigration laws.
The fines are “grossly disproportionate to the gravity” of any immigration violations, said the suit, calling them unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed in a Massachusetts court on behalf of two immigrant women. It seeks class-action status to represent people facing fines that lawyers say have totaled more than $6 billion since President Donald Trump returned to office early this year and launched an immigration crackdown.
“The people we serve are doing exactly what the law requires — pursuing legal relief through immigration courts and immigration agencies,” Hasan Shafiqullah, a supervising attorney with The Legal Aid Society, one of the groups handling the suit, said in a news release. “In return, the government is threatening to seize their wages, cars, even their homes.”
The Department of Homeland Security dismissed the suit as “just another attempt to nullify federal immigration law through activist litigation.”
“The plaintiffs in this case are here illegally and are suing so they can remain in the country illegally without any consequence or penalty – contrary to decades-old federal law,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
One of the two plaintiffs, a Florida woman identified in the complaint only as Nancy M. to shield her from retribution, had been ordered to leave the U.S., but also had what’s known as an “order of supervision” and was meeting annually with immigration authorities as she tried to become a legal permanent resident.
Instead, earlier this year she received a bill for roughly $1.8 million, a number apparently reached by totaling daily $998 fines for the past five years.
Starting soon after Trump was sworn in, the administration announced a series of efforts to encourage immigrants to leave the U.S.
In February, the Department of Homeland Security announced that people in the country illegally could face “significant financial penalty” if they chose to stay.
Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now,” McLaughlin said in February. “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws — we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce.”
Texas
Muslim civil rights group sues state for labeling it a terrorist organization
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A Muslim civil rights group that Texas’ governor labeled a “foreign terrorist organization” filed a lawsuit challenging the move Thursday, saying it violates the U.S. Constitution and state law.
The Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked a federal judge to strike down the proclamation Gov. Greg Abbott issued Tuesday, which also labeled the group “a transnational criminal organization.”
“This attempt to punish the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization simply because Governor Abbott disagrees with its views is not only contrary to the United States Constitution, but finds no support in any Texas law,” the group said in its lawsuit.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Founded in 1994, CAIR has 25 chapters around the country. It has eight employees and two independent contractors in Texas, according to the lawsuit.
The proclamation also included the Muslim Brotherhood. Neither the CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Abbott’s proclamation declares that CAIR is prohibited from purchasing or acquiring land in the state, citing a law he signed this year targeting “foreign adversaries.”
In its lawsuit, CAIR said the governor’s proclamation relies on “inflammatory statements that have no basis in fact” and cherry-picks statements from people affiliated with the group to portray it as supporting terrorism.
Months ago, Texas Republicans moved aggressively to try to stop a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state’s largest mosques near Dallas. Abbott and other GOP state officials launched investigations into the development tied to the East Plano Islamic Center, saying the group is trying to create a Muslim-exclusive community that would impose Islamic law.
EPIC City representatives called the attacks about Islamic law and other assertions misleading, dangerous and without merit. Earlier this year, the Justice Department closed a federal civil rights investigation into the planned community without filing any charges or lawsuits.
New York
Jury awards $80M for wrongful conviction in 1976 murder case
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A federal jury awarded $80 million Wednesday to the estate of a Buffalo man whose conviction in a 1976 murder was overturned after he spent nearly a quarter century in prison.
Darryl Boyd, one of the group of Black teenagers arrested for the murder of William Crawford sometimes called the Buffalo Five, filed the lawsuit in 2022 seeking damages and alleging Buffalo Police investigators and Erie County prosecutors had failed to disclose more than a dozen pieces of evidence that pointed to other suspects. The lawsuit also alleged investigators coerced witnesses to give false statements pointing to Boyd, and that prosecutors committed summation misconduct — making inappropriate or false comments in their closing arguments.
“If not for the misdeeds of Defendants, Mr. Boyd would not have been prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned in violation of his constitutional rights, and would not have spent 45 years asserting his innocence and fighting for his liberty in connection with a crime that he did not commit,” Boyd’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
A spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county extends its sympathy to Boyd’s family, but he believes the $80 million award is egregious and the county plans to appeal.
After a two-and-a-half week trial, the federal jury in the Western District of New York took about an hour to return the massive verdict — billed by attorneys as one of the largest monetary awards for a wrongful conviction case in the U.S.
After Boyd was released from prison, he spent another two decades on parole before his conviction was vacated by a judge in 2021. The county opted not to retry Boyd or John Walker Jr., whose conviction in the case was also vacated.
A third man convicted in the killing, Darren Gibson, was released from prison in 2008 and died a year later. One of the other teens was acquitted at trial, and the fifth teen testified against the others, which Boyd’s attorneys said newly released case files show was coerced.
Both Boyd and Walker had settled their case against the city of Buffalo for about $4.7 million each. Walker won a $28 million verdict against the county earlier this year, which the county has appealed.
“He lost his whole adult life to this wrongful conviction. The jury heard just how many years he was suffering in maximum security prison. All the terrible things you assume happen in prison, happened in prison,” said Ross Firsenbaum, an attorney with WilmerHale, one of three firms representing Boyd’s estate.
Firsenbaum said being released on parole was just as hard for Boyd who suffered from PTSD, anxiety and other ailments. He struggled to keep or get jobs because of the conviction and eventually began self-medicating and developed a substance abuse addiction.
Boyd was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and died in 2023 before the trial could be held. His mother and son attended the trial every day, Firsenbaum said.
“The (county) argued his substance use was the cause of his problems, not the 27 or so years he spent wrongfully in prison,” Firsenbaum said. “And that’s offensive. And the jury recognized that and responded with this verdict.”
He added that the attorneys had proven there was a pattern and practice of misconduct at the time of the convictions, not just a misdeed by one employee.
New Hampshire
State Supreme Court takes up disputed verdict in landmark youth center abuse case
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments Thursday about the disputed verdict in a landmark lawsuit over abuse at the state’s youth detention center, questioning whether their decision could bankrupt the state or essentially let it off the hook.
Jurors last year awarded $38 million to David Meehan, who alleged that the state’s negligence allowed him to be repeatedly raped and beaten as a teenager at the Youth Development Center in Manchester.
But the state is seeking to reduce the award under a sovereign immunity law that caps individual payouts at $475,000 per “incident.”
Jurors were not aware of the cap, and some later said they wrote “one” on the verdict form to reflect a single case of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from more than 100 episodes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Meehan’s attorneys argue that because jurors found the state was wanton, malicious or oppressive, applying the cap would deprive Meehan of his constitutional right to equal protection. In order of preference, they asked the court to let the $38 million verdict stand, allow the trial judge to determine the number of incidents, order a new trial just on that question or order an entirely new trial.
The state argues that the state’s mismanagement of the facility constitutes a “single incident.” Questioning that logic, Justice Patrick Donovan asked whether that would severely limit the total amount the state would pay to hundreds of others who claim they were similarly abused. The same law that limits individual payouts to $475,000 also caps the state’s total per incident at $3.75 million.
Meehan’s attorney, Dan Deane, said the state’s definition would pave the way for applying the larger cap to “decades of abuse.” But Solicitor General Anthony Galdieri, representing the state, disagreed, saying each case involves different circumstances.
Donovan also considered the opposite scenario, questioning whether a decision in Meehan’s favor would push the state toward bankruptcy given the many other cases yet to be decided. Galdieri said the justices should take the state’s finances into account, and that removing the cap would amount to an authorized appropriation of taxpayer money.
Meehan’s allegations of horrific sexual and physical abuse at the Manchester facility in the 1990s led an unprecedented criminal investigation, nine additional arrests, over 1,100 lawsuits, and the establishment of a settlement fund to compensate victims. Only Meehan’s lawsuit has gone to trial; the rest are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal.
Thursday’s oral arguments came a day after one of the men Meehan accused of abuse was acquitted on three sexual assault charges by a jury that wasn’t able to reach a verdict on five other charges. Stephen Murphy still faces charges related to two other former residents of the facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, and prosecutors could retry him on the five charges on which no verdict was returned Wednesday.
Lawsuit filed on behalf of immigrants fined up to $1.8 million for remaining in the country
A team of lawyers filed suit Thursday against federal authorities on behalf of immigrants facing what they called “ruinous civil fines” that reach up to $1.8 million.
Daily fines of $998, designed to encourage immigrants in the U.S. illegally to leave the country, have been imposed on more than 21,500 people who the lawyers said were trying to comply with immigration laws.
The fines are “grossly disproportionate to the gravity” of any immigration violations, said the suit, calling them unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed in a Massachusetts court on behalf of two immigrant women. It seeks class-action status to represent people facing fines that lawyers say have totaled more than $6 billion since President Donald Trump returned to office early this year and launched an immigration crackdown.
“The people we serve are doing exactly what the law requires — pursuing legal relief through immigration courts and immigration agencies,” Hasan Shafiqullah, a supervising attorney with The Legal Aid Society, one of the groups handling the suit, said in a news release. “In return, the government is threatening to seize their wages, cars, even their homes.”
The Department of Homeland Security dismissed the suit as “just another attempt to nullify federal immigration law through activist litigation.”
“The plaintiffs in this case are here illegally and are suing so they can remain in the country illegally without any consequence or penalty – contrary to decades-old federal law,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
One of the two plaintiffs, a Florida woman identified in the complaint only as Nancy M. to shield her from retribution, had been ordered to leave the U.S., but also had what’s known as an “order of supervision” and was meeting annually with immigration authorities as she tried to become a legal permanent resident.
Instead, earlier this year she received a bill for roughly $1.8 million, a number apparently reached by totaling daily $998 fines for the past five years.
Starting soon after Trump was sworn in, the administration announced a series of efforts to encourage immigrants to leave the U.S.
In February, the Department of Homeland Security announced that people in the country illegally could face “significant financial penalty” if they chose to stay.
Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now,” McLaughlin said in February. “The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws — we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce.”
Texas
Muslim civil rights group sues state for labeling it a terrorist organization
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A Muslim civil rights group that Texas’ governor labeled a “foreign terrorist organization” filed a lawsuit challenging the move Thursday, saying it violates the U.S. Constitution and state law.
The Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked a federal judge to strike down the proclamation Gov. Greg Abbott issued Tuesday, which also labeled the group “a transnational criminal organization.”
“This attempt to punish the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization simply because Governor Abbott disagrees with its views is not only contrary to the United States Constitution, but finds no support in any Texas law,” the group said in its lawsuit.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Founded in 1994, CAIR has 25 chapters around the country. It has eight employees and two independent contractors in Texas, according to the lawsuit.
The proclamation also included the Muslim Brotherhood. Neither the CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
Abbott’s proclamation declares that CAIR is prohibited from purchasing or acquiring land in the state, citing a law he signed this year targeting “foreign adversaries.”
In its lawsuit, CAIR said the governor’s proclamation relies on “inflammatory statements that have no basis in fact” and cherry-picks statements from people affiliated with the group to portray it as supporting terrorism.
Months ago, Texas Republicans moved aggressively to try to stop a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state’s largest mosques near Dallas. Abbott and other GOP state officials launched investigations into the development tied to the East Plano Islamic Center, saying the group is trying to create a Muslim-exclusive community that would impose Islamic law.
EPIC City representatives called the attacks about Islamic law and other assertions misleading, dangerous and without merit. Earlier this year, the Justice Department closed a federal civil rights investigation into the planned community without filing any charges or lawsuits.
New York
Jury awards $80M for wrongful conviction in 1976 murder case
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A federal jury awarded $80 million Wednesday to the estate of a Buffalo man whose conviction in a 1976 murder was overturned after he spent nearly a quarter century in prison.
Darryl Boyd, one of the group of Black teenagers arrested for the murder of William Crawford sometimes called the Buffalo Five, filed the lawsuit in 2022 seeking damages and alleging Buffalo Police investigators and Erie County prosecutors had failed to disclose more than a dozen pieces of evidence that pointed to other suspects. The lawsuit also alleged investigators coerced witnesses to give false statements pointing to Boyd, and that prosecutors committed summation misconduct — making inappropriate or false comments in their closing arguments.
“If not for the misdeeds of Defendants, Mr. Boyd would not have been prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned in violation of his constitutional rights, and would not have spent 45 years asserting his innocence and fighting for his liberty in connection with a crime that he did not commit,” Boyd’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
A spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the county extends its sympathy to Boyd’s family, but he believes the $80 million award is egregious and the county plans to appeal.
After a two-and-a-half week trial, the federal jury in the Western District of New York took about an hour to return the massive verdict — billed by attorneys as one of the largest monetary awards for a wrongful conviction case in the U.S.
After Boyd was released from prison, he spent another two decades on parole before his conviction was vacated by a judge in 2021. The county opted not to retry Boyd or John Walker Jr., whose conviction in the case was also vacated.
A third man convicted in the killing, Darren Gibson, was released from prison in 2008 and died a year later. One of the other teens was acquitted at trial, and the fifth teen testified against the others, which Boyd’s attorneys said newly released case files show was coerced.
Both Boyd and Walker had settled their case against the city of Buffalo for about $4.7 million each. Walker won a $28 million verdict against the county earlier this year, which the county has appealed.
“He lost his whole adult life to this wrongful conviction. The jury heard just how many years he was suffering in maximum security prison. All the terrible things you assume happen in prison, happened in prison,” said Ross Firsenbaum, an attorney with WilmerHale, one of three firms representing Boyd’s estate.
Firsenbaum said being released on parole was just as hard for Boyd who suffered from PTSD, anxiety and other ailments. He struggled to keep or get jobs because of the conviction and eventually began self-medicating and developed a substance abuse addiction.
Boyd was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and died in 2023 before the trial could be held. His mother and son attended the trial every day, Firsenbaum said.
“The (county) argued his substance use was the cause of his problems, not the 27 or so years he spent wrongfully in prison,” Firsenbaum said. “And that’s offensive. And the jury recognized that and responded with this verdict.”
He added that the attorneys had proven there was a pattern and practice of misconduct at the time of the convictions, not just a misdeed by one employee.
New Hampshire
State Supreme Court takes up disputed verdict in landmark youth center abuse case
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments Thursday about the disputed verdict in a landmark lawsuit over abuse at the state’s youth detention center, questioning whether their decision could bankrupt the state or essentially let it off the hook.
Jurors last year awarded $38 million to David Meehan, who alleged that the state’s negligence allowed him to be repeatedly raped and beaten as a teenager at the Youth Development Center in Manchester.
But the state is seeking to reduce the award under a sovereign immunity law that caps individual payouts at $475,000 per “incident.”
Jurors were not aware of the cap, and some later said they wrote “one” on the verdict form to reflect a single case of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from more than 100 episodes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Meehan’s attorneys argue that because jurors found the state was wanton, malicious or oppressive, applying the cap would deprive Meehan of his constitutional right to equal protection. In order of preference, they asked the court to let the $38 million verdict stand, allow the trial judge to determine the number of incidents, order a new trial just on that question or order an entirely new trial.
The state argues that the state’s mismanagement of the facility constitutes a “single incident.” Questioning that logic, Justice Patrick Donovan asked whether that would severely limit the total amount the state would pay to hundreds of others who claim they were similarly abused. The same law that limits individual payouts to $475,000 also caps the state’s total per incident at $3.75 million.
Meehan’s attorney, Dan Deane, said the state’s definition would pave the way for applying the larger cap to “decades of abuse.” But Solicitor General Anthony Galdieri, representing the state, disagreed, saying each case involves different circumstances.
Donovan also considered the opposite scenario, questioning whether a decision in Meehan’s favor would push the state toward bankruptcy given the many other cases yet to be decided. Galdieri said the justices should take the state’s finances into account, and that removing the cap would amount to an authorized appropriation of taxpayer money.
Meehan’s allegations of horrific sexual and physical abuse at the Manchester facility in the 1990s led an unprecedented criminal investigation, nine additional arrests, over 1,100 lawsuits, and the establishment of a settlement fund to compensate victims. Only Meehan’s lawsuit has gone to trial; the rest are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal.
Thursday’s oral arguments came a day after one of the men Meehan accused of abuse was acquitted on three sexual assault charges by a jury that wasn’t able to reach a verdict on five other charges. Stephen Murphy still faces charges related to two other former residents of the facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, and prosecutors could retry him on the five charges on which no verdict was returned Wednesday.
