ICE has failed to return an estimated $300 million in bond money to immigrant families, according to a class action lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
While the suit claims $300 million in bond money has been withheld, the lawsuit notes that of that amount, $240 million has been owed for so long that it has been transferred to ICE’s unclaimed funds account with the U.S. Treasury Department — an account composed almost entirely of canceled bonds that were not paid out. It is the largest unclaimed funds Treasury account of any federal agency.
“The account is only continuing to balloon at a rate of approximately $10 million dollars per year,” the suit alleges. “Making matters worse, ICE (unlike several other agencies) has no mechanism to allow obligors to search its massive unclaimed-funds account, which would allow them to figure out whether ICE is holding money to which they are owed.”
Wednesday’s suit involves the most common form of immigration bonds, known as delivery bonds, which are intended to function like criminal bail bonds. Currently, the courts allow immigrants facing deportation proceedings to be released from detention while their cases are decided, provided they pay the immigration bonds set by ICE and immigration judges.
After a bond is paid or posted, the friend or family member of the detainee forms a written contract with ICE. The detained individual is then released from custody on the condition that they attend all required court hearings. If that condition is satisfied, the bond is canceled, and ICE must return the money. But ICE has failed to return the money in many cases, the lawsuit states. The full amount of funds held and people impacted can only be confirmed from ICE’s records.
“Tens of thousands of people — many of whom come from low-wage immigrant families — have not received the money that they are owed under their contracts,” the lawsuit claims, which notes that as a result of this practice, the federal government has hundreds of millions of dollars of other people’s money in its coffers.
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The national average payment for an immigration bond set by immigration judges is $7,000, according to TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
While these amounts are unaffordable for some families and friends of people in detention, those who pay the immigration bonds are contractually entitled to have the money returned to them, with interest, once their immigration case has concluded.
“This lawsuit is about holding ICE accountable for violating the rights of immigrant families,” said Deepak Gupta, a founding principal at Gupta Wessler LLP, one of the two law firms fighting the case. “ICE isn’t above the law, and it failed to fulfill its contractual duty.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that ICE is in violation of its bond contracts with the plaintiff and the class; award monetary relief for their cash deposits and applicable interest; and award the plaintiff and the class their costs and appropriate expenses associated with fighting the case.
Douglas Cortez is the lead plaintiff in the case and one of the many individuals still awaiting ICE to return their bond money. According to the suit, in November 2013, Cortez, a resident of Uniondale, New York, signed a contract with ICE and posted a bond in the amount of $10,000 so that his friend would be released from detention while their removal proceedings were pending. The lawsuit states that the friend complied with the conditions of the bond throughout the process, but 10 years later, in August 2023, those proceedings were dismissed, and more than a year later, Cortez’s money has still not been returned.
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The lawsuit is the result of a two-year investigation by Envision Freedom Fund, an immigration bond fund that has freed 1,000 people from detention since 2018 and is supported by the Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law. Two law firms with experience in class action lawsuits against the federal government are leading the case: Gupta Wessler LLP, which defeated forced arbitration of workers’ wage claims in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries, and Motley Rice LLC, which consulted on the first class action in South Africa’s history for injured workers and negotiated the historic settlement that resolved the case.
Rosa Santana, the interim co-executive director of Envision Freedom Fund, said beyond this lawsuit, Envision is working to create a system that treats people with dignity, not exploitation.
“The fact that ICE is withholding bond money even after legal cases are resolved is a direct assault on immigrant families,” she said.
