WASHINGTON—Yesterday, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) filed a brief in the DC federal district court opposing an effort by illegal aliens and anti-borders activist organizations to derail the Trump Administration’s new version of the alien reporting system.
Since 1940, aliens—including illegal aliens—living in the United States have been required by law to register with the federal government. In the interests of efficiency, the Trump Administration has moved the registration process online. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the online form, claiming it will harm them by making it easier for the government to track and deport illegal aliens, and will force them to reveal First Amendment activity that may subject them to retaliatory deportation.
In its brief, IRLI shows that the harms plaintiffs allege do not outweigh the overwhelming public interest, which the new online form serves, in more effective and efficient immigration law enforcement. Indeed, the deportation of illegal aliens cannot even be recognized by a court of law as an injury to those deported, because it results from their own illegal activity.
As for the First Amendment, IRLI shows that, under the law, unlawful selective enforcement of even criminal laws based on free speech cannot be shown unless the defendant can show he was arrested without probable cause. Obviously, illegal aliens arrested based on information about their immigration status they reported on an online form will be unable to show that they were arrested without probable cause to believe they were in the country unlawfully. The Supreme Court, moreover, has held that selective enforcement based on free speech, which can result in release when proven, is less of a concern in the deportation process than in criminal law enforcement, because the civil offense of unlawful presence is by its nature ongoing, meaning that releasing any illegal alien is certain to result in law-breaking.
“Anti-borders groups are not called ‘anti-borders’ for nothing,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “When you have a country, you have to have a border, and when you have a border, you have to have immigration laws that are enforced, or the border becomes a fiction. By attacking the more efficient enforcement served by this online registration form, plaintiffs only show that they don’t like immigration laws, and therefore don’t like borders, or even countries, at all. We hope the court sees the complete flimsiness of their legal case, and denies the injunction.”
The case is Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. DHS, No. 1:25-cv-00943 (D.D.C.).
