The Legal Aid Society, along with Public Justice and Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP, filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to challenge the imposition of immigration fees created by H.R. 1 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act). Enacted July 4, 2025, H.R. 1 authorized an “inadmissible [noncitizen] apprehension fee” of $5,000 – currently $5,130 after an inflation adjustment – for certain noncitizens, to be applied “at the time” they are apprehended “between ports of entry.” The complaint alleges that the federal government has misapplied this fee, imposing it retroactively on noncitizens who entered the country before the passage of H.R. 1, on noncitizens who are apprehended within the interior of the United States rather than between ports of entry along the border, and on noncitizens during regular ICE check-ins that do not result in arrest.

The Department of Homeland Security’s implementation of the fee is not only contrary to the law, but contributes to a wider campaign to intimidate and punish noncitizens in the United States. E.R. v. Mullin seeks to end this practice of misapplied fees, and stands against the Trump administration’s harassment and penalization of immigrants more broadly.