Federal officials have agreed under a court settlement to transport a woman in Louisiana to a fingerprinting appointment necessary to complete her application for permanent U.S. residency, her attorneys said Monday.
Department of Homeland Security officials will transport Marina Cruz Alanis, who is being held in Louisiana's聽 Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, to an office in Mississippi where she will complete the appointment her attorneys said was the final step of her green card application.
The mother of a naturalized U.S. citizen, the 11-year U.S. resident had been barred from attending those appointments at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office throughout her eight-month detention, her attorneys say.
The settlement marks a concession from President Donald Trump's administration about the limits of a new policy guiding its sweeping . The administration last December disallowed immigrants in its custody from attending biometrics screenings. The policy said federal officials would not expend resources to help detainees attend those appointments.
The also sought to "deter the filing of frivolous claims and provide operational consistency" within ICE detention facilities, DHS attorneys said in a December memo.
A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center filed a lawsuit on Alanis鈥 behalf in January, asked a federal judge to vacate the policy and to order ICE to once again collect biometrics for people in its custody.
Fingerprinting and taking photos were the only requirements that "stood in the way between her and the processing of her application for lawful permanent residence," Alanis' attorneys said in a statement Monday.
Both parties moved to dismiss the case after DHS agreed to transport Alanis to her appointment, with court records showing a New Orleans federal judge finalized the deal last Friday.
"The administration demands immigrants play by the rules, then quietly eliminates the rules that Congress wrote to protect them from deportation,鈥 Anthony Enriquez, of the Kennedy Human Rights Center, said in a statement.
鈥淐utting off access to required biometric appointments isn't enforcing immigration law," he added. "It's running a crooked game to guarantee the outcome the administration wants."
A press release from the ACLU said Alanis has no criminal background, has lived in the country since 2015 and has a U.S. citizen child. It did not list the country she immigrated from.
Amid the Trump's administration , administration officials have ordered employees at USCIS, which processes residency applications and has not historically contributed to enforcement, to communicate with ICE and other enforcement agents.
people in the New Orleans region, including the wife of an American U.S. and the husband of a U.S. citizen, have reported being detained after arriving to regularly-scheduled USCIS appointments.
The DHS spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the settlement in her case could have broader implications for the December policy or the ways the agency handles other similar cases.
Louisiana has played a central role in ICE detention operations amid the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown, with has the second-most ICE detainees of any state except Texas.