Claire C. Bonelli represents clients in all facets of commercial litigation. Prior to joining Keker, Van Nest & Peters, Claire served as a law clerk to Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She served as an associate for an Am Law Top 50 law firm, where she represented clients in complex commercial litigation, including defense of consumer class actions, unfair competition, and false advertising lawsuits.
Claire earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. She earned her M.A. in Teaching: Elementary Education from Dominican University and her B.A. in history and Italian studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
In conjunction with the ACLU of Northern California and Centro Legal de la Raza, we filed a class action challenging ICE’s policy of re-detaining people it had previously released, without any legal basis for re-arresting them. The court provisionally certified a class and stayed ICE’s policy of re-arresting asylum seekers and others who had been lawfully released without any material change in circumstances. ICE later stated that the court’s decision rendered ICE “non-operational” in the Bay Area.
In reporting on the status of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Standard covered a series of federal court rulings that rebuke the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including three cases brought by Keker, Van Nest & Peters and its nonprofit partners. Read more
A federal judge has temporarily blocked ICE from re-arresting and re-detaining law-abiding immigrants in an order that recognizes the “extraordinary pace and scale of the change” in immigration enforcement. Read more
A federal district court in California has blocked the Trump administration’s policy of unlawfully re-arresting and re-detaining immigrants the government previously released from custody after concluding they were neither dangerous nor a flight risk. Read more
Keker, Van Nest & Peters attorneys Ellen Watlington and Claire Bonelli appeared in court with co-counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday to challenge the government’s "unprecedented campaign" of rearresting immigrants who have previously been detained and released by the government, The Recorder reported. Read more
Keker, Van Nest & Peters has joined civil rights groups in challenging ICE's practice of re-arresting and re-detaining immigrants already cleared by the government. ABC10 and other news outlets covered a hearing in the case in federal court in San Jose on Tuesday, during which attorneys from the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and Keker argued to stay the ICE practice Read more
At Keker, Van Nest & Peters, pro bono work is an integral part of our firm. From challenging illegal mass deportation tactics, to pushing for criminal justice reform, to fighting for the rights of individuals and families, our attorneys take up causes that encapsulate our belief that lawyers have a duty to protect the rule of law and ensure access to justice. Read more
For decades, the federal government has allowed immigrants who do not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk to remain out of custody during ongoing removal proceedings if they comply with their conditions of release. In May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly changed course and began unlawfully re-arresting and re-detaining people across Northern and Central California despite having no reason to believe they are dangerous or likely to flee. Read more