On March 2, 2026, Relman Colfax, alongside Democracy Forward and the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), represented a coalition of the nation’s premiere nonprofits defending fair housing, civil rights, and immigration advocacy in submitting an amicus brief asking the federal court in Houston, Texas to refuse to enter a proposed settlement agreement in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau et al. v. Colony Ridge Development LLC, et al.
The coalition, comprised of NFHA, League of United Latin American Citizens, Center for Responsible Lending, the National Consumer Law Center, UnidosUS, the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Public Justice, and Southern Poverty Law Center submitted this memorandum out of concern that the proposed settlement agreement by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Colony Ridge Development contains terms that are unlawful and unrelated to the underlying case.
Colony Ridge is a collection of six subdivisions, spanning over 40,000 lots, in Liberty County, Texas, located 40 miles northeast of Houston. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and DOJ sued Colony Ridge in December 2023 for operating an illegal land sales scheme and targeting tens of thousands of Hispanic borrowers with false statements and predatory loans with interest rates of 10.9% to 12.9%—three to five times typical market rates. According to the lawsuit, Colony Ridge sold unsuspecting families flood-prone land without water, sewer, or electrical infrastructure, and that the company set borrowers up to fail with loans they could not afford. Alleged in the lawsuit, roughly 1-in-4 Colony Ridge loans ended in foreclosure, but the company “repurchased” the properties from itself to sell them again to unsuspecting new borrowers.
Defendants intentionally targeted these predatory loans at Hispanic consumers. Defendants marketed lots for sale through Tik Tok and Instagram almost exclusively in Spanish. Defendants also employed Spanish-speaking salespeople, luring consumers with promises of camaraderie, cultural markers including flags of Latin American countries, and shared hopes of achieving the American Dream. This targeted marketing achieved the desired result: 91 percent of transactions in Defendants’ subdivisions involved at least one Hispanic consumer, even though the broader metropolitan area is only 38 percent Hispanic.
On February 10, 2026, following a change in Administration and the appointment of a new Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dhillon, the Government announced it had reached a settlement agreement with Defendants. In the press release, Dhillon mischaracterized the settlement as a victory against “schemes which ultimately encourage illegal immigration.”
The settlement agreement proposed by the Trump-Vance administration would end this case with no monetary relief for the borrowers who suffered foreclosure or other severe financial harm from this scheme. Instead, the agreement would require Colony Ridge to set aside $20 million for increased law enforcement presence, including immigration enforcement. It asks the court to enter this agreement and retain jurisdiction to enforce it.
The organizations submitting the amicus brief argue that the Court should deny the parties’ motion because the settlement agreement is improper. The immigration and law enforcement provisions are unrelated to the underlying case and the civil rights statutes under which it was filed. This case is about predatory, seller-financed mortgages that Defendants targeted at vulnerable communities–not immigration enforcement. Among the 15 different forms of relief sought by the complaint, none involve injunctive or monetary relief related to immigration or law enforcement. Moreover, the settlement funds do nothing for those who have lost their lots and financial investments to foreclosure. The Agreement does not provide for any financial redress whatsoever for aggrieved persons or the rescission or reformation of contracts, as originally sought in the complaint. Those who lost thousands of dollars to this predatory scheme receive no relief.
“[I]nstead of providing individual relief to the victims of Defendants’ predatory scheme, the settlement agreement appears intended to subject them to heightened surveillance, and, for some, could subject them to potential detention, family separation, or even deportation,” the amicus states.
Based on the foregoing analysis, the amicus brief implores the U.S. District for the Southern District of Texas to deny the Motion and to ensure the rule of law is upheld.
“The court has an independent obligation to review the terms of the settlement, and across all metrics this settlement should fail the review,” said Yiyang Wu, Partner, shared in a joint statement. “The settlement should have focused on delivering meaningful relief to the harmed borrowers. Instead, it funnels $20 million toward increased immigration enforcement in the very communities where many of those borrowers reside, thereby creating new avenues to further prey upon the community. We are hopeful that our motion will help the court understand the import of its decision and that the court will deny the government and defendants’ motion.”
The Relman Colfax team consists of Yiyang Wu, Nick Abbott, and paralegal assistance from Therese Harmon.