On July 17, 2025 the National Immigration Project, along with partners, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of SIJS youth across the country, Centro Legal de La Raza and CARECEN-NY, challenging the federal government’s termination of the SIJS Deferred Action Policy. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 

The National Immigration Project, the organizational home of the End SIJS Backlog Coalition, stands in solidarity with all SIJS youth through this lawsuit. 

End SIJS Backlog Coalition Director, Rachel Davidson, and Steering Committee Member, Rebecca Scholtz, are part of the National Immigration Project’s co-counsel team for this lawsuit.

Read our press release about the lawsuit here. 

About the lawsuit: 

A.C.R. et al. v. Noem et al., No.1:25-cv-3962, is a proposed nationwide class action filed by nine immigrant youth and two legal services providers in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the federal government’s decision to end the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) Deferred Action Policy. The SIJS Deferred Action Policy provided protection from deportation and the ability to apply for work permits to young people who have already been approved for SIJS by USCIS and who are on a legal path to permanent residency but face years-long delays due to visa backlogs.

The lawsuit—brought by the National Immigration Project, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Public Counsel, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and Lowenstein Sandler LLP—seeks to reinstate this policy, which has protected approximately 200,000 immigrant youth who have survived parental maltreatment and whom a state court has determined should not be returned to their countries of origin. The complaint argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act by ending the policy without proper notice or justification, leaving thousands of immigrant youth in legal limbo and at risk of deportation.

For more information and updates about the lawsuit, see the National Immigration Project’s case page here.