Some states are allowing lawsuits against federal agents. Is it a viable option? : NPR

Trump administration officials say federal agents have “total immunity,” but a number of states have passed laws allowing them to be sued. But is it a viable option for those seeking accountability?

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For decades, the remedy for people who believe their rights were violated by state or local law enforcement was the courts. Now, even if a police officer isn’t charged with a crime, federal law allows you to sue in federal court. Now, after raids, arrests and detentions by federal immigration officers, there’s a reversal taking place. It’s the states that are looking to hold the feds accountable. Kelly McEvers reports.

KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: On January 22, 2026, Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz was driving to work in downtown Portland, Maine. He’s a civil engineer here on a work visa. Maine was a few days into the so-called Catch of the Day Operation, where federal agents targeted, quote, “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.” That day, an unmarked SUV cut Carvajal-Munoz off. He says agents surrounded his car. Carvajal-Munoz showed his ID and reached for his phone to record what was happening. Then he says agents smashed the car window with a crowbar, pointed a taser at him, put him in the SUV and eventually took him to an ICE detention facility in Massachusetts.

CAROL GARVIN: And he continued to be detained for the next 16 hours.

MCEVERS: This is Carol Garvin, Carvajal-Munoz’s attorney at the ACLU of Maine.

GARVIN: At one point, they asked him again who he was, and then it became clear that they knew that he shouldn’t be detained.

MCEVERS: Because she says agents apparently realized he was a legal resident. So Carvajal-Munoz was released. He had to take a cab to a bus back to Maine. Up until recently, there weren’t many ways people like Carvajal-Munoz could get relief. The U.S. Supreme Court has strictly limited options for people to take legal action against federal agents. In January, the Department of Homeland Security posted this video on social media of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

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STEPHEN MILLER: To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and no one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.

MCEVERS: But a growing number of states say that’s just not true. In Maine and California, lawyers are bringing civil cases against federal agents using old laws already on the books, like in the case of Carvajal-Munoz, who’s suing for unlawful detention and use of force and racial profiling. The Department of Homeland Security said in an email that allegations of racial profiling are, quote, “disgusting, reckless and categorically false.”

In seven other states, new laws have recently been passed that would allow people to sue federal agents – Illinois, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Jaba Tsitsuashvili is a lawyer with the Institute for Justice.

JABA TSITSUASHVILI: I think people have been kind of hungry for accountability, right? And they’ve been trying to figure out where to turn, and states are stepping in and saying, well, look, the federal government is violating people’s rights, and so we’re going to allow them to seek accountability in our state courts.

MCEVERS: Whether this will be successful, Tsitsuashvili says the new state laws haven’t been tested yet, though they do appear to have, quote, “tremendous teeth.” The Trump administration is already challenging two of them.

For NPR News, I’m Kelly McEvers in Los Angeles.

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