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ACLU Announces Settlement in Lawsuit Over Warrantless Raid By US Immigration Agents and Nashville Police
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
The American Civil Liberties Union announced a settlement in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of victims of a warrantless raid in Nashville, Tennessee, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Metropolitan Nashville Police Department officers. ICE and MNPD agreed to pay $310,000 to settle all claims, and ICE granted the noncitizen plaintiffs deferred action status for seven years.
The case, Escobar v. Gaines, stemmed from a 2010 raid in which armed ICE and MNPD agents in full SWAT gear descended upon an apartment complex at night that was home to mostly Latino residents. The lawsuit alleged that agents and police stormed into and searched homes without a single warrant or consent, shouted racial slurs, and held guns to some people's heads. Residents were detained without any reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe they had engaged in any criminal activity, and no one was ever charged with a criminal violation as a result of the raid.
The ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU of Tennessee, and firms of Ozment Law and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. brought the lawsuit on behalf of numerous residents, including U.S. citizens.
"A person should never have to go through what we did," said Marvin Benjamin Lopez Raxcaco, one of the plaintiffs. "It was terrifying, and hopefully this settlement will stop this from happening to others in the future."
Plaintiffs sued ICE and MNPD for, among other things, conspiracy to violate their rights to be free from unlawful searches and seizures, and discriminatory conduct.
"This settlement sends a strong message to law enforcement across Tennessee and nationwide that the Constitution demands all people be treated fairly under the law, regardless of their skin color," said ACLU attorney Andre Segura. "Agents cannot trample the Constitution because of their stereotypes and assumptions about someone's immigration status."
Related settlements have already been reached with private defendants, and the agreement announced today with the U.S. government and Nashville police brings the legal fight to a close.
"Every American should jealously guard against the excesses of government in violating the basic freedoms from warrantless searches and unauthorized home entries -- no matter to whom it happens," said Elliott Ozment of Ozment Law.
"More important than the monetary recovery in this settlement is the message it sends that everyone should be treated fairly under the law," said Caryn Lederer of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd.
More information about this case is at: https://www.aclu.org/cases/escobar-v-gaines
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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'Slaughtered in Cold Blood': Iranians Describe US Massacre of School Children to UN Human Rights Council
"Israel and the United States, who are the cause of this suffering, must be held accountable," said a mother whose two children were killed in the school strike. "Not for revenge, but for justice."
Mar 27, 2026
A grieving Iranian mother told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday that when she sent her children off to their elementary school in the city of Minab late last month, "there was no sign that this would be the last time."
Speaking via video link to the 47-member UN body, Mohaddeseh Fallahat described combing the hair of Mahdiyeh and Amin, two of the more than 100 children killed in a US missile strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School on February 28, the first day of the war.
"No mother is prepared to hear the words, 'Your child is not coming back,'" Fallahat told the council. "I am not just a grieving mother. No. I am the voice of all the mothers who sent their children to school believing they would be safe. A school was meant to be a place of learning, laughing, and building the future—a safe place for the children who were supposed to build the future of this world, not a place where their future is extinguished in an instant."
"Israel and the United States, who are the cause of this suffering, must be held accountable," she continued. "Not for revenge, but for justice, so that the world knows that children's lives are not worthless."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke after Fallahat, telling the council that the strike on the Minab elementary school was a crime, not a "miscalculation." Those killed in the attack, he said, were "slaughtered in cold blood."
“At a time when the American and Israeli aggressors, in their own assertion, possess the most advanced technologies and the highest precision military and data systems," said Araghchi, "no one can believe that the attack on the school was anything other than deliberate and intentional."
Preliminary findings in a US military investigation of the strike reportedly indicate that American forces were behind the attack, but that it was "the result of a targeting mistake" as the Trump administration conducted "strikes on an adjacent Iranian base of which the school building was formerly a part," according to The New York Times.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called for the US to complete its investigation "as soon as possible" and release the findings to the public.
"There must be justice for the terrible harm done," Türk said during Friday's human rights council session.
More broadly, the human rights chief called on the US and Israel to "end their attacks against Iran" and "return to negotiations—the only path towards a durable solution to their differences."
"There is a high and rising risk of further contagion and increased civilian suffering in the countries directly involved," said Türk. "Beyond the region, there are fears of grave economic consequences, from deepening poverty and hunger to shortages of medicine and fuel. It is imperative that all parties halt the escalation."
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"They want us to be scared and isolated, but instead we are joining together in overwhelming numbers to speak out against authoritarianism and abuses of power."
Mar 27, 2026
A broad coalition of organizations is mobilizing for the third edition of nationwide "No Kings" demonstrations on Saturday, March 28, to denounce President Donald Trump's lawless authoritarianism, insatiable greed, and his unconstitutional and illegal war with Iran.
Organizers have set up a website to help people find a demonstration near them. As of this writing, there are more than 3,200 events are scheduled to take place on Saturday across all 50 states.
Previous versions of the No Kings demonstrations—which drew millions into the streets—focused on the president's domestic policies, such as his use US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to terrorize communities and carry out mass deportations, as well as severe cuts made to programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, public education, scientific research, workplace safety, food assistance for the poor, and other programs.
However, this weekend's protests will also take on the Iran war, which was launched nearly a month ago and has led to thousands of deaths while generating a spike in global energy prices and chaos throughout the Middle East.
As summarized by Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, the three central themes of the protests will be, "No kings, no ICE, no war."
Naveed Shah, political director of Common Defense and a US Army veteran, said that he was disturbed to see the president run roughshod over the Constitution he swore an oath to defend.
"We did not serve this country so it could be handed over to one man’s ego," said Shah. "We served because we believed in something bigger—a government of the people, by the people, for the people. A constitution that means something. A democracy worth defending. That’s what No Kings is all about."
While opposition to the Iran war is a new dimension to the No Kings rallies, Edwin Torres DeSantiago, manager of the Immigrant Defense Network, said that protests against the Trump administration's mass deportations were also front and center.
"You don’t send masked agents into neighborhoods, into airports, into communities to keep people safe," said Torres DeSantiago. "You send them to keep people terrified. And that fear is not accidental, it’s part of a larger escalation. We’re already seeing the consequences. Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Dr. Linda Davis, Ruben Ray Martinez and dozens of others that have been killed by this administration’s escalation."
Katie Bethell, executive director at MoveOn Civic Action, argued the demonstrations were a direct rebuke to Trump's ambitions to rule the US by decree without any checks or balances.
"The Trump administration made a terrible miscalculation that we would cower and capitulate in response to their chaos and cruelty," said Bethell. "That we would put up with our healthcare being slashed, with gas prices and utility bills going through the roof, while they shower billionaires in tax cuts. Americans are no fools."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, emphasized the importance of maintaining solidarity as the best weapon against authoritarian aggression.
"They want us to be scared and isolated, but instead we are joining together in overwhelming numbers to speak out against authoritarianism and abuses of power," said Gilbert. "No matter where they take place, these events are nonviolent, they’re disciplined, they will be grounded in solidarity. This is what the administration is scared of—our unity in this moment."
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"In just four weeks, thousands have lost their lives, including first responders and humanitarian workers," said the world-renowned aid group. "Hundreds of thousands have been uprooted."
Mar 27, 2026
Nearly a full month into US President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice in Iran, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement Thursday expressing horror at the humanitarian catastrophe the deadly conflict has unleashed across the Middle East, with millions of civilians trapped in the crossfire.
"One month of hostilities has upended the lives of millions and sent shockwaves far beyond the region at a scale and speed that threatens to overwhelm the humanitarian response," said the world-renowned organization, a three-time winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. "In just four weeks, thousands have lost their lives, including first responders and humanitarian workers. Hundreds of thousands have been uprooted. Essential infrastructure critical for the supply of energy, water, and health care has been damaged or destroyed. The use of heavy explosive weapons with wide area impact in urban settings has caused suffering and fear."
The war, said the organization, is "eroding the foundations of civilian life in the Middle East."
Without naming any countries in particular, the ICRC condemned "the way hostilities have been waged" with no "respect for the rules of war" that the humanitarian group helped establish and works to uphold.
"At a time of escalating needs and tightening humanitarian budgets, the ICRC and other organizations are being forced to adapt to disrupted supply chains that are undermining their operations," the group said Thursday. "Meanwhile, several countries already burdened by humanitarian crises must now also contend with rising fuel prices and increasing operational costs.
"Respect for the rules of war reduces the consequences for civilians, especially during military operations," the organization added. "All parties, regardless of the side they are on, are bound by international humanitarian law (IHL), and all states have an obligation to respect and ensure respect for IHL, even if their adversary does not."
"Those who survive the bombardment are waking up to a dire humanitarian reality. We are seeing families fleeing with only the clothes on their backs."
The Red Cross statement came as aid groups and human rights organizations assessed the state of the US-Israeli war on Iran—and the Iranian government's retaliatory attacks on Gulf nations—one month after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the joint military assault, and as fears of an imminent US ground invasion of Iran mount.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday that it is "alarmed by attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure across the conflict, including schools and hospitals, and other harms to children including as a result of mass displacement."
Save the Children estimated that one in every five kids in Lebanon has been forced to flee their home since Israel intensified its aerial and ground assault on southern Lebanon in conjunction with the war on Iran.
“No child should have to run for their life in the middle of the night. Yet in Lebanon today, it’s happening to family after family - children fleeing, terrified,” Inger Ashing, the group's chief executive officer, said Friday. "Lebanon’s children are being pushed past their limits. They are exhausted, traumatized, and losing the very foundations of childhood. The world cannot look away—we need action, and we need it now."
Marcoluigi Corsi, the UN Children's Fund representative in Lebanon, said Friday that "the human cost of this escalation is shocking."
"Those who survive the bombardment are waking up to a dire humanitarian reality. We are seeing families fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, forced to move multiple times within days as repeated displacement orders are issued," said Corsi. “Meanwhile, essential civilian infrastructure—including hospitals, schools, bridges, and water and sanitation systems—upon which children depend to carry on with their lives have been consistently attacked, damaged, or destroyed."
In Iran, more than 1,900 people—including women and children—have been killed by US-Israeli attacks, and at least 20,000 have been injured, according to the latest estimate from the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
"The humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating," Maria Martinez, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, warned on Friday.
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