Immigrant rights advocates on Monday filed a federal lawsuit against two South Texas sheriffs and two state prison wardens on behalf of four Mexican migrants, claiming they were held in prison for as long as six weeks after they served their sentences or had their trespassing charges dropped.

The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Fair Defense Project and the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling, claims that thousands of other people were also detained longer than they should have been under Operation Lone Star, the border enforcement program Gov. Greg Abbott launched in 2021.