A New York resident hit the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a proposed class action in New York federal court Tuesday, accusing the agency of systemically failing to return more than $300 million in bonds paid to secure the release of immigrants whose detention proceedings were later dismissed.

In a 9-page complaint, Douglas Cortez of Uniondale, New York, seeks to rectify ICE's alleged yearslong practice of withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in bond payments — dubbed "delivery bonds" that function like criminal bail bonds — which has predominantly affected low-income households.

"This is a class action alleging that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has broken its promise to thousands of people who put up their hard-earned money to keep their loved ones out of detention and, having upheld their end of the bargain, are entitled to get their money back," the complaint says.

Cortez notes that typically, immigrants who are detained by ICE, or their family members, post cash bonds, which can be thousands of dollars and average roughly $6,000, in order for the individual to be released while their removal proceedings are pending in the immigration courts.

Whoever posts the bond becomes a "cash obligor" and enters a written contract with ICE. If the defendant meets the bond conditions at the end of the removal proceedings, the bond is canceled and the cash obligor is entitled to recover the funds given to ICE to secure the bond plus interest, the suit says.

However, Cortez alleges that in a "huge" number of immigration cases, ICE has "failed to live up to its end of the bargain" and failed to repay the bond funds, purportedly retaining hundreds of millions of dollars to which it is not entitled.

The suit claims ICE also regularly fails to notify the obligors that the bonds have been canceled, sends cancellation notices via regular mail as opposed to certified mail, and requires obligors to submit an original copy of a specific immigration form that many obligors do not have access to.

"Add it all up, and ICE has failed to fulfill its contractual obligation to refund cash deposits to obligors following cancellation events in a significant percentage of cases," the complaint says.

Cortez filed the suit following a multi-year investigation by counsel that purportedly discovered ICE is likely withholding more than $300 million in bond proceeds, according to the complaint. A significant portion of that amount has been transferred to the U.S. Treasury's unclaimed monies account, even though ICE has no mechanism to allow obligors to search the government's "massive unclaimed-funds account, the complaint says.

For his part, Cortez signed a contract with ICE in November 2013 and posted a $10,000 bond to have his friend released from detention, but after his friend's removal proceedings were dismissed in August 2023, ICE never returned the $10,000 bond plus interest to Cortez, according to the complaint.

The suit asserts a single breach of contract claim under the Little Tucker Act, and it seeks to certify a nationwide class of individuals who posted a cash bond with ICE and have not received a return of their cash deposit, even though the bonds were canceled.

The proposed class includes individuals whose bonds' value, plus interest, do not exceed $10,000 while the litigation is pending, unless the putative class member expressly waives any right to receive more than $10,000 in damages, according to the complaint. The complaint also seeks to recover attorney fees, expenses and costs.

Cortez's counsel, Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler LLP, said in a statement Tuesday that the lawsuit seeks to hold ICE accountable for violating the rights of immigrant families.

"ICE isn't above the law, and it failed to fulfill its contractual duty to cancel bonds, to notify payers that their bonds have been canceled, and, ultimately, to pay them the money that they are owed," Gupta said. "As a result, the federal government has retained hundreds of millions of dollars to which it is not entitled."

Representatives for ICE and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Douglas Cortez and the putative class are represented by F. Franklin Amanat, William H. Narwold, Meghan S. B. Oliver, Charlotte E. Loper and Ranee Saunders of Motley Rice LLP, Deepak Gupta, Jonathan E. Taylor and Thomas Scott-Railton of Gupta Wessler LLP and by Peter L. Markowitz and Mauricio E. Noroña.

Counsel information for the government was not immediately available Tuesday.

The case is David Cortez v. United States of America, case number 2:24-cv-07532, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

--Editing by Vaqas Asghar.