Lucy v. Skrmetti

Case Overview

In June 2026, the National Immigration Law Center and co-counsel filed a lawsuit, challenging Tennessee’s H.B. 1704, as unconstitutional. In the United States, the federal government has the sovereign authority to regulate immigration and the removal of noncitizens. H.B. 1704 seeks to usurp that authority by forcing certain non-citizens to leave the state of Tennessee under penalty of arrest, detention and prosecution for a state crime.

In this case, we represent two longstanding state residents whose lives and communities are firmly rooted in Tennessee. Our plaintiff, who has called Memphis home for 25 years, has a pending application for relief under the Violence Against Women Act. Our second plaintiff, a DACA recipient, has lived in the United States since he was a child. Because both have previous final removal orders, and despite their current or pending immigration applications, they could be potentially arrested, detained, and prosecuted under H.B. 1704, unless they choose to leave their entire lives in Tennessee behind.

H.B. 1704’s harms would be far-reaching. This extreme law would create a state system in which Tennessee officials have extraordinary and unprecedented power to unilaterally arrest, detain, and prosecute people, even people whom the federal government has granted protection from removal or still have forms of immigration relief potentially available to them, like humanitarian protections.

The challenge seeks to block H.B. 1704 from going into effect on July 1, 2026, and was brought by the National Immigration Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.