Immigrants' Rights

In recent years, government-sanctioned attacks on immigrants’ civil rights and liberties have increased in number and intensity. Immigrants face violence, discrimination, detention, and deportation, often without due process. When immigrants are denied equal protection under the law, the constitutional values upon which this country was founded are degraded.

protect immigrants

The ACLU of Kansas is dedicated to expanding and protecting the rights of immigrants in this state, regardless of their citizenship status. We use litigation, advocacy, public outreach, and education to work to lessen the hostility immigrants face on a daily basis on the state and local levels.

Our legal department has successfully petitioned jails in Kansas to stop illegally detaining people for unreasonable amounts of time at the request of federal immigration authorities. Most recently we helped to foil a bill that would have made it impossible for immigrant students raised in Kansas to receive in-state tuition to public universities in Kansas. Through the Know Your Rights project, we’re also working to educate immigrants in Kansas about their rights and supporting the community.

RESOURCES

The Latest

Publication
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Municipal ID Cards

Municipal ID cards are a form of photo identification issued by a city or county government, rather than by the state (as with a driver’s license) or the federal government (as with a passport).
News & Commentary
ICE

Federal officials said Kansas ICE sweep caught 'heinous criminals,’ then backtracked

“The pattern here is one of asking Kansans to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes and experience and instead to trust the word of the officials pursuing this particular policy,” Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said in a phone interview. “Rather than acknowledging that people have legitimate concerns here, rather than acknowledging that legal and constitutional rights are being violated constantly, those in the positions of power on this, instead, just tell us all that we don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re insufficiently grateful to them, and challenge us to simply take their word for it rather than believe our own eyes.”
News & Commentary
us attorney

US attorney defends ICE operation in southwest Kansas

But Micah Kubic, executive director of American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, detailed the optics of ICE operations across the country. “Kansans are seeing through these transparent attempts to turn neighbors against one another, and even if the U.S. Attorney finds them inconvenient, the facts are clear: masked, unidentified men are recklessly storming our streets, surrounding cars, separating parents from children, then disappearing them into ICE's creeping network of deplorable jails and prisons,” he said in a written statement.
News & Commentary
ice out

Rally protesting ICE operations held in Wichita park

During an ACLU protest in Riverside Park, City Council members Mike Hoheisel, Maggie Ballard and Joseph Shepard spoke out against partnerships known as 287(g) agreements. The agreements allow local law enforcement agencies to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand ICE efforts.

Cases, Campaigns & Legislation

Court Case
Jul 2, 2026

Motion to Intervene: U.S. v. Kansas (Regular tuition for Kansas students)

On July 1, 2026, MALDEF and the ACLU of Kansas filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit between the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Kansas on behalf of students without lawful immigration status in Kansas who would be irreparably harmed by the elimination of regular tuition. The DOJ sued the state of Kansas for providing in-state tuition to college students without lawful immigration status. Rather than defend the laws of the state he serves, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach immediately joined the DOJ in asking the court to overturn the law that has been in place since 2004. On September 9, 2026, a federal court for the District of Kansas denied Kansas immigrant students’ Motion to Intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking to eliminate regular tuition for students without lawful immigration status in Kansas. The court also denied Governor Laura Kelly's Motions to Intervene and Dismiss the DOJ lawsuit and entered the consent judgment sought by the DOJ and Attorney General Kris Kobach ending access to regular tuition for undocumented Kansas students.