Lucy v. Skrmetti

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Tennessee, and National Immigration Law Center filed a federal class-action lawsuit challenging a new Tennessee law, HB 1704, that unconstitutionally usurps federal immigration enforcement power by making it a crime for certain immigrants to remain in the state.

Courts across the country have repeatedly reaffirmed that immigration enforcement is a power that belongs exclusively to the federal government — not the states.

Tennessee’s law, however, creates a new crime for people with final removal orders who have not left the state. HB 1704 is part of a larger framework of new extreme anti-immigration state laws aimed at criminalizing noncitizens’ presence within a state either by punishing entry, or in this case, lack of departure.