Testimony in ICE raid case postponed?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 3:19 AM EDT
By Mary E. O’Leary
New Haven Register
HARTFORD — A hearing on whether to suppress evidence collected in the arrest of dozens of Greater New Haven residents by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last year was postponed Monday over procedural questions.
Immigration Judge Michael W. Straus was persuaded to put off testimony by six of the 32 residents picked up in two raids in June 2007 until their lawyers and counsel for ICE can confer with the U.S. attorney’s office.
The government appeared amenable to granting “testimonial immunity” — basically an agreement that testimony in the hearing before Straus could not be used against those arrested in any subsequent hearings.
A ruling by the U.S. attorney’s office would more explicitly define that agreement.
Of the 32 people arrested, the government is charging that the majority were here illegally by ignoring deportation orders, overstaying their visas or entering the country illegally.Their attorneys are challenging the arrests, claiming the government agents conducted illegal searches, lacked probable cause and arrested the immigrants based on race, all of which violate the Fourth and Fifth amendments.
John Marley, an ICE attorney, said it was better to resolve the immunity issue now rather than “dancing around” it as the hearings proceed. “Let’s get all the answers to all the questions,” he said to Straus.
Attorney Michael Wishnie, of the Yale Law School, who is representing the immigrants through the school’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, said immunity was offered in similar cases he dealt with in New York. An agreement between the parties would “substantially expedite” the Connecticut case, he said.
URL: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2008/10/21/news/a3-neraid.prt
