Our Work is Shaping Legal Outcomes and Drawing National Attention

By putting applications on hold, Mr. Hubbard said, the federal government was creating challenges for immigrants who had been trying to follow the proper legal process toward green cards or U.S. citizenship. “This is about people who tried to follow the process and still are being stymied,” Mr. Hubbard said.

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“The government cannot use its subpoena power to intimidate families out of seeking lawful medical care. To trans and gender-diverse children and their families, we want you to know that you are valued, you are not alone,” Kevin Love Hubbard, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement.

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“(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is moving people across the country, and they’re moving them to places where it’s very hard for them to get pro bono immigration help,” [Amy Romero, the chief legal counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhone Island] said. “These sorts of court orders help counter that.”

“Habeas is an opportunity [to challenge unlawful detention],” Amy Romero, chief legal counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island and a mentor with the Habeas Project of New England, told Truthout. “It’s a review of the constitutional rights of people, which includes the right to due process, and we keep seeing that courts keep finding that these detentions are unconstitutional, that people are being held without due process.”

“Volunteer attorneys have now filed dozens of habeas petitions challenging the unlawful detention of individuals wrongfully detained by ICE at Wyatt, and we will continue to do so as long as this continues,” [Amy Romero] told The Light in an emailed statement. “The mission of the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island is to ensure that skilled and dedicated lawyers will challenge the federal government whenever it acts in violation of the law, threatens democracy, or advances authoritarianism.”

[Kevin Love] Hubbard said that challenging the federal government can be intimidating, but he hopes this lawsuit can show others what is possible. “There is this sense,” he said, “that courage is contagious.”

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Kevin Love Hubbard, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, said the court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to pay only partial benefits when it knew that would take weeks or months. “The court saw through the administration’s pretextual claim that it did not have sufficient funds to pay for both SNAP and children’s nutrition programs, citing President Trump’s own words to find that, in fact, the administration unlawfully withheld benefits for political reasons,” he said.

“Essentially, in order to apply, applicants had to say, ‘yes, we agree with you that trans people don’t exist,’” Hubbard said. This condition violates the First Amendment since “it’s the government telling you what you have to believe and say,” he argued.

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“Congress designed Solar for All grants to give local front-line communities the tools to lower household energy costs and ensure high-quality careers for a new generation with clean, renewable energy,” Amy R. Romero, chief legal counsel of Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, said in a statement Monday. “The Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, along with its colleagues, has brought suit against the federal government to enforce the law enacted by Congress and ensure Rhode Islanders receive what Congress intended.”

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“You can see that the government’s posture is essentially: Do the thing that’s going to make the White House happy, or get the press release about sticking it to trans people,” said Kevin Love Hubbard, a former D.O.J. attorney who represented the government before leaving in August. Agencies are doing that, he said, “without thinking about then having to go into court.” Today, he is suing the government in several funding cases with the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island.

Although suing the United States exclusively and consistently is beyond challenging, I feel unexpectedly hopeful. I see courage all around me: courageous judges; courageous nonprofits, cities and states willing to challenge the federal government; courageous bystanders who protect their neighbors; and even courageous AUSAs who are staying true to their professional and moral compass. The experience of the past year, along with our country’s history of civil rights movements, reinforces that courage is contagious, and that is what motivates me to continue pushing on.

A former Civil Chief, Kevin Love Hubbard, who was part of a wave of departures in 2025, “decided he could no longer serve in a DOJ where leaders messaged ‘your only role is to serve the president,’ but he still respects the “consummate professionals” remaining who now litigate against him.”

Kevin Love Hubbard and Joe Gaeta argued that Rhode Island can constitutionally and carefully push back on ICE enforcement through legislation before the General Assembly.

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