Keker, Van Nest & Peters attorneys continue to set the standard for pro bono advocacy that protects individual rights and upholds the rule of law. In recognition of this ongoing commitment, the ACLU of Northern California named the firm the inaugural recipient of its Constitutional Guardian Award, highlighting Keker’s work on cases involving unlawful Border Patrol stops, conditions at California’s largest ICE detention facility, and the unlawful re-detention of immigrants.
During the American Bar Association’s National Celebration of Pro Bono, we look back on recent cases that put those principles into action.
Holding Federal Officers Accountable to the Law
- After Keker secured the release of a law-abiding Colombian asylum seeker arrested at her immigration court hearing, the firm joined the ACLU of Northern California and Centro Legal de la Raza in filing a class action in Garro Pinchi v. Noem challenging DHS and ICE’s broader re-detention policy. The lawsuit argued that ICE had no legal basis to re-arrest people it had previously released when there had been no material change in their circumstances. In December, the court ordered a stay blocking ICE from arresting and redetaining noncitizens in Northern California.
- In Gomez Ruiz v. ICE, Keker, Prison Law Office, the ACLU National Prison Project, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice secured class certification and sweeping preliminary relief for more than 1,000 people held at the California City Detention Facility. The court ordered ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to provide constitutionally adequate medical care, temperature-appropriate clothing and blankets, and meaningful access to legal counsel, and appointed an independent monitor to oversee medical care. The monitor has subsequently reported systemic healthcare failures and violations of the court’s order, documenting inadequate staffing, delayed or denied treatment, medication lapses, and failures to accommodate people with disabilities.
- We represented the small town of Social Circle, Ga., in challenging the federal government’s plan to turn a one-million-square-foot warehouse into a 10,000-bed immigration detention “mega center,” twice the population of the town itself. Our challenge argued that ICE and DHS acquired the property without adequate environmental review or consideration of the project’s major impact on the community and the town’s water and sewer infrastructure in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Our innovative legal strategy and forceful advocacy helped compel DHS to abandon the project.
- Keker and the ACLU of Northern California continued representing United Farm Workers and Kern County residents in their challenge to Border Patrol’s unconstitutional stop-and-arrest practices. After a federal judge refused to pause the litigation while the government appealed, the court found that Border Patrol violated its preliminary injunction by detaining 11 day laborers without reasonable suspicion during a Sacramento enforcement operation. The court ordered stronger compliance measures after finding that agents relied on generalized assumptions and submitted inaccurate, boilerplate reports to justify the stops.
- Keker, Asian Law Caucus, and Greater Boston Legal Services secured a preliminary injunction barring the IRS and Treasury Department from sharing protected taxpayer information with ICE. The order also prohibited immigration authorities from using or accessing taxpayer information they had already received. In September, we returned to court seeking information about whether federal agencies were attempting to circumvent the injunction through private contractors and demanding greater transparency concerning the transfer of Social Security data.
- With Democracy Forward and Protect Democracy, we are representing three federal employee unions challenging an unlawful “loyalty question” on federal civil service job applications in an unprecedented attempt to compel applicants for civil service positions to profess their loyalty to the president. After the question appeared in more than 70,000 job postings, a Massachusetts federal court blocked the administration from enforcing the requirement while the case proceeds. The ruling protects applicants from compelled political speech and preserves the longstanding principle that civil servants should be selected based on merit rather than political allegiance.
Advancing Criminal Justice Reform
- The firm’s Felony Murder Resentencing Project secured the release of Gennel Miles, who spent 16 years in prison under California’s former felony murder rule despite the absence of physical evidence tying him to the crime. The team uncovered video of the prosecution’s key witness recanting her testimony and identified evidence supporting Mr. Miles’s alibi, ultimately obtaining an amended judgment that allowed his immediate release based on time served.
- Keker and the ACLU of New Mexico are suing the state Corrections Department on behalf of three individuals held in the Penitentiary of New Mexico to end the practice of long-term solitary confinement.
Advocating for Families of Transgender Children
- Keker joined GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), and Brown Goldstein & Levy in challenging an abrupt reversal of a Department of Defense policy, which now prohibits military clinics and hospitals from providing continuing medical care for their transgender adolescent and adult children.
Representing Longtime U.S. Residents in Immigration Cases
- In 2026, Keker secured significant pro bono victories protecting two longtime U.S. residents from immigration detention and reuniting them with their families. The firm won a preliminary injunction preventing the government from re-detaining a bisexual Jamaican man who survived torture and persecution, while continuing to represent him in his appeal seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture. In a separate habeas case, the firm secured an order requiring the immediate release of a Haitian man who has lived in the United States since age four. He endured repeated transfers among ICE detention facilities across the country before Keker secured his release, allowing him to return home to his family.
Alongside our public interest partners, we have secured clients’ freedom, blocked unlawful government action, and won court orders protecting fundamental rights. We will keep pressing for accountability so that the protections we win in court deliver meaningful change for the people and communities we represent.