Those seeking to sue ICE for injuries or damage face an uphill battle

An undocumented immigrant is seeking $1 million in damages after he says he was riding his bike in Melrose Park, Illinois, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent suddenly tackled him, placed him in a chokehold and punched his head.

A Chicago resident says that federal agents caused $30,000 worth of property damage when they broke a lock on his wrought-iron gate and scaled a wooden fence to chase after construction workers repairing his Victorian-era home.

A Columbia University student and activist who spent 104 days in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center is demanding $20 million over what he says was a false arrest.

All three should expect a long and difficult fight under the current legal landscape, lawyers warn.

These and scores of other claims expected to arise out of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration are winding through a bureaucratic process mandated under the Federal Tort Claims Act. It is the primary legal recourse for people seeking compensation for property damage, injuries and even deaths allegedly caused by federal agencies and their employees.

First, individuals must fill out a form and submit it for review by the agency that they say caused the harm. Agencies such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection have six months to deny a claim, offer a settlement or not respond at all. Only then can people sue in court under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

But these cases are different from civil rights lawsuits. Judges, not juries, decide the outcome. Awarded damages are likely to be much lower. And individual officers can’t be named as defendants.

“It’s absolutely bonkers,” said Brian Orozco, a Chicago attorney for Ricardo Aguayo Rodriguez, the bike-riding immigrant who was hospitalized and is now detained, awaiting deportation to Mexico. “If a Chicago police officer abuses my civil rights, I can file a claim immediately. I don’t have to wait six months [to file a lawsuit]. I have a right to a jury trial. I don’t have that when I’m up against the federal government. It’s scary to me how protected these federal agents are.”

After the Civil War, Congress passed a law that established the right to sue local and state officials for the violation of constitutional rights. Federal officials weren’t included in the law, though a 1971 Supreme Court ruling established precedence for such lawsuits. But legal experts said that the court’s decisions within the past decade have narrowed that path and made it nearly impossible to successfully sue federal agents for civil rights violations.

“It is arguably harder today in 2026 than at any other time in American history to sue federal officials for money damages if they violate your constitutional rights,” said Harrison Stark, senior counsel at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Relatives of both Renée Good and Alex Pretti, Minneapolis residents who were fatally shot in separate encounters by federal immigration officers in January, have hired attorneys. In a statement, Romanucci & Blandin, the law firm retained by Good’s family, said it is pursuing a tort claim and would not be deterred by “the byzantine, time-consuming processes mandated by the Federal Tort Claims Act.” The attorney hired by Pretti’s parents did not respond to a request for comment.

An ICE spokesperson said the agency received about 400 tort claims in fiscal 2025, which ended Sept. 30, but did not provide a breakdown of how many resulted in settlements or denials.

“Despite facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, 8,000% increase in death threats, and a 3,200% increase in vehicle rammings, the men and women of ICE continue working around the clock” to arrest and remove “the worst of the worst criminal aliens from the United States,” ICE said in an emailed statement. The Washington Post could not independently verify these numbers.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson declined to provide data about the number of tort claims the agency received last year.

“Rioters and agitators have created an extraordinary amount of damage to public and private property, not to mention the harm they have put our officers and the public in,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement. “We expect these agitators will be held responsible for their actions.”

Spokespeople for ICE and CBP declined to comment on individual claims described in this story. They broadly said their agencies adhere to the Federal Tort Claims Act.

A significant settlement is not impossible. The estate of Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot and killed on Jan. 6, 2021, during the U.S. Capitol riot, filed a tort lawsuit and reached a nearly $5 million settlement with the government.

But the challenges of navigating the Federal Tort Claims Act – coupled with an anticipated rise in claims as violent encounters continue in cities across the United States – have put pressure on Congress to pass legislation to allow civil rights lawsuits against federal officers and agents.

Such an effort would probably face pushback, experts said. Several years ago, the National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents Border Patrol agents, warned the Supreme Court of the “potentially massive financial impact” that would occur if thousands of its agents were exposed to “liability for personal damages.”

‘Not very hopeful’

Leo Feler said he ran into challenges as soon as he decided to pursue a tort claim. For one thing, he wasn’t sure where to send it: Feler didn’t know which federal agency employed the masked men who came to his Chicago home on Oct. 24.

Feler, a 46-year-old economist, said he wasn’t there at the time. But he received a notification from his Ring security camera: Someone was on his property.

A construction crew had been repairing the windows and siding of his home in the affluent Lakeview neighborhood. As the workers ate lunch outside, armed men in green uniforms jumped from two vehicles and tried to break the locks on the gates of a nearly 6-foot-high wrought-iron fence, according to Feler, who reviewed security camera footage of the incident and a video taken by a neighbor.

The agents, Feler said, had scaled a wooden fence along the side of his house and hopped onto his balcony in pursuit of the fleeing workers.

One worker was injured as he scrambled through a construction site littered with wood and nails, Feler said, leaving a trail of blood in the home. Another worker was detained, he said.

Feler said a tenant who rented a unit on his property asked the officers to provide a warrant that authorized the raid, but they refused to do so. Through his Ring camera’s intercom system, Feler told the agents that they were trespassing and needed to leave. But they ignored him, he said.

Feler later sought legal advice. Attorneys told him he could file a tort claim for damages.

Unsure which agencies had come to his house, Feler sent the paperwork for his tort claim in December to ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security.

He described the damage to his property – including to his locks and fence – and also wrote that the agents “robbed me and my family of the feeling of security we once enjoyed in my home.” His tenant was afraid and asked to break her lease early, which Feler said he agreed to do.

Overall, Feler estimated $30,000 in damage to his property.

He said he is “not very hopeful” that he will receive payment. If his claim is denied, he said he and his attorneys will pursue a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Others caught up in Operation Midway Blitz, the administration’s immigration enforcement actions in the Chicago area last fall, also said they expect it will be difficult to recover alleged damages.

Leigh Kunkel, a 39-year-old freelance journalist, said she was documenting federal agents shooting pepper balls at protesters in late September outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. An agent then aimed the weapon at her and fired pepper balls, she said, striking her in the back of the head and the nose and leaving her bloodied.

A week later, her fiancé, Kyle Frankovich, also was protesting in Broadview within an area that he said state police monitoring the scene had designated a “free speech zone.” Federal officials, including Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, emerged from the ICE facility and began arresting protesters, according to video footage.

Frankovich, 41, said he showed no aggression toward agents; nevertheless, he said, they took him to the ground and put him in handcuffs. They later lined him up with other detainees along a guardrail near the facility. The scene served as a backdrop to a Department of Homeland Security promotional video featuring Secretary Kristi L. Noem.

He said he was detained for eight hours before a federal agent dropped him off at a nearby gas station. Frankovich has not been charged with a crime.

Antonio Romanucci, a civil rights lawyer and founding partner at the Chicago-based firm representing Renée Good’s family, said his office plans to file federal tort claims for Kunkel and Frankovich. The couple said they understand the path may be long and their case could be unsuccessful, while also exposing them to public scrutiny.

“Ultimately, we landed on the feeling that we are privileged enough to have the opportunity to fight back against this as citizens,” Kunkel said, “and that if we can do that, if this is one little way that we can push back, that we should.”

Pushing for change

Previous efforts to change the federal law have failed to gain traction.

A law signed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871 established the statutory right to sue local or state officials for constitutional violations. Nearly two years ago, a group of U.S. lawmakers introduced draft legislation that would have amended that law by inserting just four words – “or the United States” – and established the right to sue federal officials as well. But the effort stalled.

“It’s a somewhat complicated area of law across different jurisdictions,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, said of the challenges in garnering support for the bill, which he sponsored. “But I didn’t see any huge partisan issues.”

Whitehouse said there was a lack of urgency at the time, even though the Supreme Court had “more or less strangled” the legal pathway that had been used since the 1970s to sue federal officials for civil rights violations.

Last fall, Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, reintroduced the measure. Legal experts told The Post they think it is unlikely to pass, citing anticipated concerns about exposing federal law enforcement officers to personal liability.

A handful of states already have laws that authorize claims against federal officials for the violation of constitutional rights, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, according to research compiled by Stark of the University of Wisconsin Law School. Lawmakers in other states are scrambling to draft similar bills.

Last week, the California Senate passed the “No Kings Act” to allow civil rights lawsuits against federal officers. The measure will head to the State Assembly next.

In Colorado, state Sen. Mike Weissman, a Democrat, recently introduced a similar bill. He described talking with state legislators in Washington, New Mexico and Virginia, to exchange ideas.

And in Minnesota, state Rep. Jamie Long, a Democrat whose district includes part of Minneapolis, has drafted such a bill for the legislative session that begins later this month.

“We know that there is evidence of these severe constitutional violations happening, and that’s why we think it’s appropriate to create this state remedy,” Long said.

Such measures are likely to be challenged. The U.S. Justice Department has already sued Illinois, alleging that its new law authorizing civil rights claims against federal officers is an “unconstitutional attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers.”

In the meantime, those who say they have sustained property damage or injuries during immigration enforcement efforts and their attorneys are continuing to press lawmakers to enable them to sue federal officers.

Christopher Parente, a Chicago-based lawyer, is representing Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old teacher’s assistant who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in October and survived. In an interview with The Post, her attorney said he thinks that Congress should change the law.

Parente, a former federal prosecutor who plans to file a tort claim on Martinez’s behalf, said, “There is no deterrence – in fact, these agents are embraced and celebrated by this administration and their colleagues.”

A chilling effect

People seeking compensation from the federal government may face another roadblock: finding an attorney to take their case.

“I’ve met people who spent the entire statute of limitations period, which is generally two years, looking for attorneys to represent them in cases against the federal government or federal officials and not being able to find them,” said Anya Bidwell, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm based in the D.C. area.

Bidwell said many attorneys are deterred from taking Federal Tort Claims Act cases because the government often invokes “a very broad immunity that courts traditionally interpret to pretty much swallow any of the claims that involve any kind of a judgment or choice on behalf of an officer.”

In other words, many cases are dismissed. Bidwell said “even getting to trial is extremely difficult.”

Some people who consider filing claims ultimately decide not to, discouraged by the long and difficult process.

In Minneapolis, Gina Christ, a 55-year-old business manager, contacted a lawyer to challenge what she described as an unlawful detention. But the attorney she met with told her suing the government would be “very, very difficult,” Christ recalled.

Christ had driven to a protest that began after Border Patrol agents allegedly tried to arrest a pair of Latino teens. She said she parked along the side of the street to observe the agents, not to obstruct them.

Christ said she was soon surrounded by agents and protesters. Agents yelled at her to move before smashing the window of her Ford Escape. They opened the door, pulled her out of the car and held her facedown on the pavement, she said.

Agents restrained her wrists with plastic zip ties, Christ said, while her eyes and throat burned from tear gas fired into the nearby crowd.

Authorities took her to a federal building for processing, she said, and placed her in metal arm and leg shackles. She said they walked her to a folding table, where there was a makeshift sign with the criminal code for assaulting an officer. They told her she would face charges and took her fingerprints and a DNA swab.

Christ said she spent nearly four hours in custody before she was released. She hasn’t been charged with a crime.

A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson did not answer questions about the agency’s interaction with Christ.

After weighing the difficulty of pursuing a tort claim, Christ said she plans to pay to fix her window herself. Given what others have lost, she said, it seems too small to pursue.