IMMIGRATION LAW: Gang Violence and Relief from Removal Fourth Circuit Update

Suzanne Bailey—Senior Attorney

          With the widely reported drama surrounding escalated enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that not every apprehension is the end-of-the line for non-citizens who have unlawfully entered the United States. Some non-citizens are permitted by U.S. law to remain in the United States.

           A recent decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals addresses two potential avenues of relief for those for whom a return to their homeland would pose a danger that could not be alleviated by their own governments. See Ramos Marquez v. Bondi, No. 24-1842, ___ F.4th ___, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 30262, 2025 WL 3223424 (4th Cir. Nov. 19, 2025).

 Jason Holder—Senior Attorney 

ATTORNEY ETHICS: How to Make a Bad Situation Worse: Court Sanctions Attorney for Using Hallucinated Cases to Defend Himself Against Motion Alleging Prior Use of Hallucinated Cases

     In a cautionary tale for attorneys seeking to use artificial intelligence (“AI”) technology in an effort to save time and money, a New York trial court has sanctioned counsel for relying “upon unvetted AI—in his telling, via inadequately supervised colleagues—to defend his use of unvetted AI.” Ader v. Ader, 2025 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 7848, at *1, 2025 NY Slip Op 51563(U), 1, 87 Misc. 3d 1213(A), 240 N.Y.S.3d 701 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County Oct. 1, 2025). The initial offense was brought to the court’s attention when the opposition “identified inaccurate citations and quotations in Defendants' opposition brief that appeared to be ‘hallucinated’ by an AI tool.” Id. at *3. Without admitting or denying the use of AI, the offending attorney initially suggested that the passages cited by the opposition “were intended as paraphrases or summarized statements of the legal principles established in the cited authorities.” Id. Rejecting this argument, the court noted that the “paraphrases” included “bracketed terms to indicate departure from a quotation (not something one would expect to see in an intended paraphrase) and comments such as ‘citation omitted.’” Id. at *4. Compounding matters, the cases cited relied upon for the alleged paraphrases of law “did not stand for the propositions quoted, were completely unrelated in subject matter, and in one instance did not exist at all.” Id.

   Charlene Hicks—Senior Attorney

  Beginning with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in East River S.S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 106 S. Ct. 2295 (1986), courts nationwide have utilized the economic loss doctrine to preclude plaintiffs from obtaining a tort remedy for contract-based claims. In effect, a plaintiff cannot pursue a tort claim to recover purely economic losses.

      Although the economic loss doctrine is universally accepted, the practical application of this doctrine varies considerably from state to state. See In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 66 F. Supp. 3d 1154, 1171 (D. Minn. 2014) (analyzing the economic loss rules in 11 different states as applied to data breach litigation and finding that some states allowed the negligence claim to continue whereas others barred the claim); Reno Flying Servs. v. Piper Aircraft, Inc., No. 13-cv-04346 NC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163470, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 21, 2014) (determining that although California, Nevada, and Florida all “employ some form of the economic loss rule, each state would apply it differently in this case”).

Robert Westendorf—Research Attorney

      Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, was hired as an executive secretary by the Ohio Department of Youth Services in 2004 and was later promoted to program administrator. Ames v. Ohio Dep't of Youth Servs., 605 U.S. 303, 306, 145 S. Ct. 1540 (2025). In 2019, she applied for a newly created management position. Id. Although she was interviewed for the position, a lesbian woman was ultimately hired. Id. A few days after her interview, she was demoted from her program administrator position to her old secretary position. Id. The agency then hired a gay man for the now-vacant program administrator position. Id.

 Anne Hemenway—Senior Attorney 

      In March 2025, the American Federation of Teachers ("AFT") filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of Education (U.S. Dist. Ct. D.C. Civ. Action 25-802 (RBW)) for denying federal student loan borrowers their rights to an affordable repayment plan and to debt forgiveness opportunities which are mandated in their loan terms. These student loan income-driven repayment plans were mandated by Congress in part by President Biden's Savings on a Valuable Education ("SAVE") Plan, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1070 et seq., and the Department of Education’s revised regulations which provided more generous terms for income-based repayment plans. See Missouri v. Trump, 128 F.4th 979 (8th Cir. 2025) (citing SAVE Rule, 88 Fed. Reg. at 43901-02). Other students represented in the pending AFT class-action lawsuit are seeking relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback program. At the end of August 2025, the Department of Education had a backlog of 1,076,266 income-driven repayment plan applications.

Amy Gore—Senior Attorney

            Calling a fee payment “non-refundable” is no protection from an ethical violation. The Virginia Supreme Court’s recent decision in Swango v. Virginia State Bar ex rel. Second District, No. 241016, 2025 Va. LEXIS 43, at *1 (July 31, 2025), clarified the differences between a refundable retainer and a non-refundable consultation fees.

Anne Hemenway—Senior Attorney

Robert Westendorf—Senior Attorney

Jason Holder—Senior Attorney

Anne Hemenway—Senior Attorney

            In United States v. Rahimi, 144 S. Ct. 1889, 219 L. Ed. 2d 351 (2024), the United States Supreme Court, in an unusual nearly unanimous 8-1 decision, upheld a 1994 federal criminal law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), against a challenge that the law violated the Second Amendment. The statute bans the possession of a gun by someone who has been the subject of a domestic violence restraining order or any order that restrains a person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such partner or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of injury.