Calderon Settlement: Who Qualifies, ICE Protection, and Reopening

The Calderon settlement is a class-action agreement approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on January 16, 2025, that protects certain noncitizen spouses of U.S. citizens living in New England who have final orders of removal. For two years, through January 16, 2027, it lets eligible people ask ICE to jointly reopen and dismiss their removal cases so they can pursue lawful status, and it limits ICE from arresting, detaining, or deporting them in the meantime.¹²

Who Qualifies as a Class Member

You are covered by the settlement if you meet all four of these conditions:

You have a final order of removal and have not already left the United States under that order.
You are the beneficiary of a pending or approved Form I-130 (Petition for Alien Relative) filed by your U.S. citizen spouse.
You are not categorically ineligible for a provisional unlawful presence waiver under the governing regulations.
You live, or are being detained, within the jurisdiction of the Boston ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office. That covers Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.²

People with in absentia removal orders can also submit requests under the agreement.²

Protection From ICE Enforcement

During the two-year settlement period, ICE is prohibited from taking enforcement action against class members unless it determines that a specific individual poses a threat to public safety.¹ Any decision to arrest, detain, or remove a class member must be approved by a senior field office official, and the government must notify class counsel of any enforcement action or removal decision within five business days.²

How the Joint Motion to Reopen and Dismiss Works

The core benefit of the settlement is the Joint Motion to Reopen and Dismiss, or JMTR. Attorneys in ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) review each request individually and are expected to “presumptively join” a motion to reopen and dismiss removal proceedings when the class member shows they are preliminarily eligible for one of two paths to status:

Consular processing with a provisional unlawful presence waiver (Form I-601A), or
Adjustment of status inside the United States (Form I-485).²

ICE keeps sole discretion to decline a request if it decides the person poses a public safety or national security threat, has committed serious immigration benefit fraud, or is a repeat immigration violator.² Once a joint motion is filed, the usual time and numerical limits on motions to reopen do not apply.³

If OPLA agrees, the joint motion is filed with the immigration court that issued the removal order, or with the Board of Immigration Appeals if the case is there. The packet you send to ICE is for internal review only; it is not itself a filing with USCIS or the immigration court.³

What to Submit, and What to Avoid

To ask ICE to join a motion to reopen, you or your attorney sends a documentation packet to the local ICE OPLA office. It should include:

A copy of the I-130 petition (even if already approved), with the receipt or approval notice.
The complete I-601A or I-485 application you intend to file, with all supporting materials. If a waiver of inadmissibility is required, include that application too.
A signed declaration from the noncitizen stating an intent either to depart for consular processing after waiver approval or to apply for adjustment of status in the United States.
Proof of residence or detention in one of the six New England states.
Proof of the final removal order.³

One warning matters a great deal. Do not send filing fees for the I-601A or I-485 with the JMTR packet, and do not pay those fees to USCIS at this stage. If you do, ICE may treat the application as already pending and decide you no longer qualify for the settlement’s process.¹³

When ICE Tries to Remove Someone Anyway

The settlement’s protections have been tested in court. The clearest ruling to date came in the case of Gilberto Alves da Silva, a Brazilian citizen who lived in Everett, Massachusetts. ICE detained him in Florida on December 16, 2025, after a traffic stop for speeding. His attorney asked OPLA to consent to a JMTR on December 19, 2025, and ICE agreed; the joint motion was filed in immigration court on January 8, 2026.⁴

The government then moved to remove him anyway, arguing that the settlement’s protections applied only inside the Boston ERO’s geographic jurisdiction and that da Silva had forfeited them by traveling to Florida. On January 23, 2026, Judge Patti B. Saris rejected that argument. She ruled that ICE’s obligation to process JMTRs is a “national obligation” not restricted by geography, and that removing a class member while a JMTR is pending would violate the settlement’s implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing because it would “eviscerate” the class member’s ability to benefit from the agreement.⁵⁴

Judge Saris ordered that da Silva could not be removed while his JMTR remained pending in immigration court unless new evidence showed he posed a public safety or national security threat, and she directed the government to make efforts to expedite resolution of his case.⁴ If you are a class member and ICE moves to detain or deport you, class counsel can return to Judge Wolf’s court to enforce the agreement; the court retained jurisdiction for exactly that purpose.⁶

How Long the Settlement Lasts

The settlement runs from January 16, 2025, through January 16, 2027. The provision governing motions to reopen continues after that end date until ICE has responded to every request submitted during the two-year window. The ACLU of Massachusetts serves as class counsel and keeps practitioner resources current, including a JMTR template last updated in May 2026.¹

1
ACLU of Massachusetts. Calderon Settlement Information
2
ACLU of Massachusetts. Calderon Settlement Agreement
3
ACLU of Massachusetts. Calderon JMTR Template
4
GovInfo. Calderon Jimenez v. Noem, Order on Motion to Enforce
5
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Immigration Class Settlement
6
CourtListener. Calderon Jimenez v. Cronen Docket, Final Approval