By HILDA MUÑOZ
The Hartford Courant
October 29, 2009
Ten city residents arrested during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the summer of 2007 are suing the agency in federal court, claiming their civil rights were violated.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in New Haven, naming the agents who conducted the raids, their supervisors and senior ICE officials as defendants.
The plaintiffs, who are fighting deportation, are being represented by lawyers and students from Yale Law School's Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization.
"For them, it's been a humiliating, fear-producing, difficult and extraordinarily painful situation," said Ana Muñoz, one of the law students working on the case.
ICE does not comment on pending litigation, agency spokeswoman Paula Grenier said.
The plaintiffs were sleeping or engaged in morning routines the morning of June 6, 2007, when ICE agents, carrying a "target list," banged on their doors. Weapons drawn, agents entered the plaintiffs' homes without cause, consent or search warrants, according to the lawsuit.
"Federal immigration authorities had not previously determined that most of those they arrested were in violation of immigration law, and the agents who stormed through Fair Haven had no reason to assume that those they arrested lacked immigration status," the lawsuit states.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said that ICE agents often are looking for a fugitive immigrant and end up finding an undocumented immigrant.
"Every illegal alien is deportable," he said. " You don't have legal right to complain that ICE found you."
The Center for Immigration Studies is a nonprofit organization devoted to research and policy analysis of the impact of immigration in the United States.
Federal agents arrested 29 illegal immigrants in the raids, two days after city officials approved a program that would grant identification cards to undocumented immigrants.
At the time, Grenier said the roundup was part of a routine fugitive operation, according to a report by the Associated Press. But city officials, including Mayor John DeStefano, said they believed the raids were conducted in retaliation for the Elm City Resident Card Program.
The lawsuit makes the same claim.
"Hartford ICE agents deliberately chose to conduct raids in New Haven in retaliation for the City's efforts to improve public safety for all its residents by integrating immigrants and Latinos into civic life," the lawsuit states.
"When federal law enforcement officials try to fulfill enforcement obligations, the Constitution still applies to them," Muñoz said.
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-icelawsuit1029.artoct29,0,313028.story
