ACLU Lawsuit: Warrantless Raid on Tennessee Apartments Aimed to Clear Complex of Hispanic Residents

By Ashley Portero
Business and Law
November 1, 2011

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 15 residents of a Tennessee apartment complex who had their homes illegally raided by immigration officials on Oct. 20, 2010, an act the suit claims was the result of a conspiracy to rid the complex of its Hispanic residents.

Multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, in addition to officers from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and the employees for the private security company Crime Suppression Services, forced their ways into multiple residences in South Nashville's Clairmont Apartments without a search warrant, ultimately arresting 20 people, according to the lawsuit. The ACLU of Tennessee reports ICE officials broke into apartments, harassed residents with racially-charged slurs and even held guns to the heads of some unarmed individuals.

When one of the residents asked the law enforcements agents if they had a search warrant, one agent reportedly replied, "We don't need a warrant, we're ICE." He then gestured to his genitals and made an explicit reference, saying the warrant was "coming out" of that area.

It is unclear as to whether the agent in question has been identified. Lindsay Kee, the communications director of ACLU Tennessee told the International Business Times the office did not have any additional information about the incident beyond what is listed in the legal complaint.

ICE officials did not return a request for comment. The agency told The Tennessean it does not comment on pending litigation.

Did Law Enforcement Officials Violate 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments?

The lawsuit argues law enforcement officials violated the plaintiffs' -- who are all U.S. citizens -- rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

In particular, the Fourth Amendment strictly prohibits law enforcement from intruding into private homes without a judicially authorized search warrant. In the absence of a warrant, citizens' must offers their voluntary and knowing consent.

The plaintiffs include a child who the ACLU claims was detained and interrogated while playing soccer on a playground because he appeared to be of Latino descent.

The lawsuit names several ICE agents, officers from the Nashville police department as well as the apartment complex's owner, manager and security company. The apartment complex is managed by Greystar Real Estate Partners and owned by TriTex Real Estate Partners.

In a statement released shortly after the incident, the Nashville Police Department said the raid was in response to reports from Clairmont Apartments' employees who said there was a threatening gang presence at the complex, The Tennessean reports. Police said they were concerned gangs were preying on undocumented immigrants that were hesitant to report robberies and other crimes because of their immigration status.

The department statement, according to the newspaper, said officers merely conducted "knock and talks" and did not illegally force their way into their homes.

The statement does not appear on the police department's Web site.

The lawsuit claims Greystar manager Tracy Hall told police she intended to "clean house, and get the Hispanics gone." As a result, the management company reportedly allowed building conditions to deteriorate. In addition, in the course of one rental cycle Greystar abandoned its on-site offices, began demanding Social Security numbers in order to sign lease agreements, and coordinated immigration raids that led to 20 detentions and resulted in scores of apartment vacancies.

Some of the 20 people arrested during the Oct. 2010 raid were placed into deportation proceedings, while others were released. No criminal charges were pursued.

In an Oct. 19 news conference where ACLU officials announced the lawsuit -- just one day before the year-anniversary of the incident -- Megan Macaraeg of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said many Hispanic residents are leaving Clairmont Apartments out of fear.

"I was just there today chatting with residents," Macaraeg said. "There are still apartments that stand vacant, and most Hispanic residents who were there are gone, have fled the site of terror."

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/241396/20111101/aclu-lawsuit-warrantless-raid-tennessee-apartment-complex.htm

Latino residents sue ICE over apartment raids

By Associated Press
October 19, 2011

NASHVILLE — Fifteen residents of a Nashville apartment complex sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers Wednesday over what they said were violations of their constitutional rights during a raid last year.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and claims ICE officers, along with Metro police, entered homes without warrants, consent or probable cause.

It alleged the raid was part of a conspiracy with the owners of the Clairmont Apartments to rid the complex of Latinos. All but one of the plaintiffs are Latino.

The suit claimed the officers violated several constitutional rights and seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory damages.

ICE and Metro’s deputy legal director both said they do not comment on pending litigation.

According to the suit, in early 2010, the Clairmont Apartments were sold in bankruptcy proceedings and taken over by a company that allowed conditions to deteriorate in an effort to force out current residents, many of whom were Latino.

The company abandoned its onsite offices, hired a “notoriously harsh” security company, allowed two buildings to lose hot water and saw an immigration raid that led to at least 20 detentions but no criminal arrests, the suit said.

The suit said ICE and Metro Gang Unit officers on Oct. 20, 2010, broke into apartments and held unarmed adults at gunpoint, shouting obscenities and racial epithets at them.

At a news conference announcing the suit, ACLU of Tennessee director Hedy Weinberg said her group respects the right of the United States to control immigration, but the rights to due process and equal protection apply to everyone.

“Looking Latino is not probable cause,” she said.

Megan Macaraeg with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said she was called to the apartments when the raid started.

“It was like nothing I had ever seen,” she said. Describing how she came to the U.S. to escape repression in the Philippines in 1974, she called the raid “personally appalling to me.”

Another federal suit was filed earlier this month by four Clairmont residents claiming similar rights violations during a smaller raid that took place Oct. 1, 2010.

http://www.timesnews.net/article/9037273/latino-residents-sue-ice-over-apartment-raids

Hispanics sue feds over raid; Lawyer says agents target old addresses

By Brandon Gee
The Tennessean
Oct. 10, 2011

Four Nashville residents say federal agents illegally entered their apartment while looking for a fugitive at the complex.

Their attorney says the raid represents a pattern of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Nashville operate. They go to an old address where the target of the raid no longer lives but go ahead and arrest whoever happens to be living there now.

“This is not the only time this has happened,” said immigration attorney Elliott Ozment, who has filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of local Hispanic residents who claimed they were mistreated by federal and local authorities. “They get an old address, they go to that old address looking for somebody who hasn’t been there in years and arrest others incidentally. That’s the way they operate.”

Ozment filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in response to the first of two controversial raids that police and immigration authorities conducted at a South Nashville apartment complex last year.

He filed the lawsuit on behalf of four former residents of the Clairmont apartment complex. Pablo Cahuec-Castro, Myra Leticia Juarez, Ottoniel Perez-Piox and Maria del Rosario Osorio say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials illegally entered their home on Oct. 1, 2010 — with the assistance of the complex’s maintenance supervisor — and subjected them to unreasonable searches and unlawful seizures.

The Oct. 1 arrests were followed by a much larger ICE operation on Oct. 20, 2010, that included the Metro Nashville Police Department and resulted in 20 federal arrests. The Tennessee Immigrant Rights Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union called a news conference after the second raid and claimed dozens of residents had their rights violated by ICE agents who broke into homes without consent and dragged people out at gunpoint in front of children.

Ozment claims his clients were treated similarly on Oct. 1.

According to the lawsuit, ICE agents threatened to break down their door and “drag every one of you out one by one” if they weren’t allowed into the apartment. The lawsuit states that the agents did not have a warrant but that Cahuec-Castro eventually let the agents in out of fear.

Fugitive not found

The agents were looking for a fugitive whom they did not find in the apartment. Cahuec-Castro and Perez-Piox were arrested after questioning and after agents found an entry matching the fugitive’s name in Cahuec-Castro’s cellphone contacts.

“Defendants violated Plaintiffs clearly established constitutional rights by arresting them after an illegal entry into their residence, unlawful and involuntary custodial interrogation, unlawful search and seizure of … Cahuec-Castro’s cellular phone, and an unlawful search of plaintiffs’ home,” the lawsuit states.

Ozment said Cahuec-Castro is now fighting deportation in immigration court and Perez-Piox has returned to Guatemala.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages for physical and mental pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and medical and psychological expenses, as well as punitive damages.

ICE would not comment on the lawsuit.

“ICE is precluded from commenting on pending litigation,” New Orleans-based spokesman Temple Black said. “We routinely report matters of public record when they are releasable.”

In addition to the ICE agents, the lawsuit names the Clairmont’s owner, manager and former maintenance supervisor as defendants. The complex is managed by South Carolina-based Greystar Real Estate Partners. Messages left with Greystar and Atlanta-based TriTex Real Estate Partners, which owns the complex, were not returned. The maintenance supervisor, Scott Jarvis, no longer works at the complex.

According to a Metro police news release, staff at the apartments reported a strong gang presence at the Clairmont and said employees had been threatened after the Oct. 1 arrests of Cahuec-Castro and Perez-Piox. The police gang unit said members of the MS-13 and SUR-13 gangs lived in the complex and were suspected of preying on undocumented workers there who were hesitant to report robberies and other crimes because of their immigration status, according to the release.

Police began monitoring the complex and targeting suspects after receiving the apartment managers’ complaints and ultimately conducted the raid with ICE on Oct. 20. While residents claimed they were terrorized, the news release states that officers merely conducted “knock and talks,” meaning they knocked on doors and spoke with those who answered while looking for suspects or criminal activity at the same time.

Some of the 20 people arrested that day were placed into deportation proceedings while others were released. No criminal charges were pursued. Employees at the complex said conditions have improved since the sweeps, but Ozment said the long-term impact has been harmful.

“They are full of fear, the Hispanic community, very fearful,” he said. “Now, at least, they don’t open their doors when people knock.”

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111010/NEWS03/310100030/Hispanics-sue-feds-over-raid

Families File Federal Lawsuit in 2008 Immigration Raid

Casa de Maryland is working with two local families who said they were abused during the raid that targeted Annapolis Painting Services.
By John Wilfong
Great Annapolis Patch
August 9, 2011

Casa de Maryland worked with two families involved in a 2008 immigration raid to file a federal lawsuit this week against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The immigrant advocacy group said ICE officials, along with several Anne Arundel County Police officers, committed “blatant and egregious violations of the rights” of two families during the raid that targeted Annapolis Painting Services.

The lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. According to a story in The Capital, the families are seeking $2.5 million in damages. The lawsuit also asks that ICE change the manner in which it carries out its enforcement operations.

The families involved claimed the raid on June 30, 2008 that involved their homes and 15 others in the area revealed a “widespread pattern of abusive and illegal actions by ICE officers during home raids,” according to a release.

According to a release from Casa de Maryland, the families’ chief complaints are:

• Awakening residents in the pre-dawn hours by pounding and shouting at the doors to their homes and even their bedrooms.
• Entering victims’ homes, armed—without consent, exigent circumstances, probable cause, or a valid warrant—all as part of an operation targeting individuals other than the victims.
• Grabbing, jostling, and pushing residents of the homes, who were dressed only in whatever minimal clothing they happened to be sleeping in, while detaining and searching them in their own homes.
• Making victims answer questions and sign papers in a language they don’t understand.
• Threatening, bullying, and separating individuals from their family members.
• Handcuffing, shackling, and detaining victims for weeks in appalling conditions without telling them that they can speak with an attorney.

“The forceful and intimidating manner in which federal officers violated the rights and shattered the privacy of the victims of the June 30, 2008, raids have caused them significant and lasting harm,” Casa de Maryland officials said in the release.

The ICE Baltimore Office could not be reached for comment. Questions seeking comment to the Anne Arundel County Police Department were redirected to the county Office of Law, which couldn't be reached Tuesday afternoon.

http://greaterannapolis.patch.com/articles/families-file-federal-lawsuit-in-2008-immigration-raid

Man suing government over raid at 7-Eleven fled to U.S. because of death threat;Immigration officials say lawsuit should be thrown out & man deported

By Nick Madigan
The Baltimore Sun
June 25, 2011

Sitting on a bus in Honduras in 2002, Denis Alvarez Alvarado says he overheard two men in front of him discussing how he was going to die.

Unaware that he was there, the men said that members of a gang called MS3 — who had kidnapped Alvarez a few days earlier, beaten him and eventually released him — intended to silence him so that he would not tell police about the abduction.

"I left Honduras because I was afraid that MS3 members would kill me," Alvarez, now 32, says in court documents drawn up in his legal fight against the U.S. government to avoid deportation to his native country. "I fear that if I return the MS3 gang will have me killed."

On Jan. 23, 2007, Alvarez, who had arrived in the U.S. without documentation, was arrested by immigration agents outside a 7-Eleven store in Upper Fells Point. A judge ordered him deported, but he is still here. Four years after his release on bail, he remains embroiled in a legal war as both defendant and plaintiff, and the battle could go on for years.

One of Alvarez's legal cases is the effort by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport him, and the other is his lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that his constitutional rights were violated because he was targeted as a Latino. He seeks a half-million dollars in damages.

What seemed a routine matter of rounding up illegal immigrants has become a test of the government's ability to force a man to return to a place in which, he says, he could die.

The raid in which Alvarez and others were arrested left Baltimore's Latino community angry. Human rights activists, politicians and representatives of Casa de Maryland, an advocacy group, accused federal immigration agents of racial profiling.

Attorneys for the ICE declined to comment, and court documents contain no references, other than Alvarez's own, to his claim that his life would be in danger should he be forced to go home. Alvarez's lawyers were silent, too. Alvarez, whose 11-year-old son was born in the U.S., says in court documents that he is the sole source of financial support for his father, who is in Honduras, disabled and using a wheelchair.

In documents Alvarez filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, he explained the events that had prompted his departure from Honduras. He had lived in Choluteca, the country's fourth-largest city, in a neighborhood called El Porvenir that he said was "known to belong to a gang called 18."

Alvarez wrote that in October 2002 he was kidnapped by members of MS3, a rival gang from the Santa Lucia neighborhood. "The MS3 gang falsely believed that I was a member of 18," he said. "I tried telling them that I was not a gang member and that I had no connections to 18 or any other gang. However, they did not believe me."

For two days he was kept in a room, he said, beaten and deprived of food and with only a single bottle of water. Alvarez's father, Santos, whom he described as "respected in the community," convinced MS3 that his son had no connection to the rival gang.

Alvarez was released. Several days later, he was riding a bus to work when he overheard the chilling conversation between the two men and the death threat. He fled to the U.S. and worked as a day laborer in Baltimore, where the 7-Eleven parking lot on Broadway was a popular spot to pick up workers.

In an interview at his East Baltimore home in November, Alvarez said the agents had "grabbed me unjustly" during the roundup in 2007. Alvarez said he was waiting for a man who had promised to hire him as a painter but decided to go home when the man failed to show up. Alvarez said that as he was leaving, a van appeared and the men inside — who turned out to be federal agents — solicited the crowd for construction workers.

In the lawsuit, Alvarez said that as he walked away, a second vehicle blocked his exit and men emerged wearing holstered guns. Alvarez was arrested, held for several days in the Dorchester County jail and released on $10,000 bail.

Alvarez said in court documents that the ICE's Fugitive Operations Team had arrested him "based on nothing more than his race."

A response filed by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the ICE, said members of its fugitive team went to the 7-Eleven only to get food and coffee, and had not planned to arrest anyone as part of a raid.

An immigration judge overseeing Alvarez's appeal of his deportation said the officers "were not forthcoming" about the arrests. The judge said it was "implausible" that the officers "went to the store to purchase food and coffee," considering the "nearly immediate arrival of two additional ICE vehicles." He admonished the officers for their "complete lack of candor to the court" and said they had misrepresented to the laborers "that they were seeking to hire them for casual employment."

But the judge determined that the officers had not violated Alvarez's rights and ordered him deported, though he may remain here while he appeals.

Other documents filed in the case suggest that immigration agents were determined to boost their arrest numbers. An internal DHS administrative report says that after the officers had detained nine people earlier on the day of Alvarez's arrest, a supervisor ordered the team "back into the field and make additional arrests."

According to the report, the supervisor said they "needed more numbers." Newshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif accounts of the raid indicated that out of 24 people arrested, eight had been previously deported and six had criminal records. Alvarez has no such record.

Warren Price, an Annapolis immigration attorney who is not involved in Alvarez's case, said it was rare for a roundup of illegal immigrants to result in such a drawn-out legal battle. Alvarez is represented by the Immigrant Justice Center, based at American University's Washington College of Law.

"These constitutional violations against members of the undocumented population happen all the time, but you rarely see these types of lawsuits in response," Price said. "Usually they just get deported."

www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-alvarez-raid-20110613,0,2065062.story

Law Suits Filed Against Obama's Stealth Amnesty Plan

By Tom Fitton
The Right Side News
Saturday, 02 April 2011

JW Sues DHS — Twice! — for Records Detailing Obama “Stealth Amnesty” Plan

The President was on record earlier this week saying he has no plan to suspend deportations for illegal aliens. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise. So Judicial Watch is going to court — again — to try to force the truth out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

This week we filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the DHS to obtain records detailing the Obama administration’s alleged plan to grant legal status to illegal aliens without going through Congress, a strategy commonly known as “stealth amnesty.”

On July 2, 2010, Judicial Watch sent a FOIA request to the DHS to obtain the following information: “Any and all records of communications between the Department of Homeland Security and any of the following entities, concerning ‘deferred action’ or ‘parole’ to suspend removal proceedings against a particular individual or group of individuals for a specific timeframe; as well as records of communications concerning ‘selective reprieve’ to the segment of the population holding expired visas: The White House; The Executive Office of the President; any third parties.” We’re also after internal DHS communications regarding “deferred action or parole.”

Then on August 30, 2010, Judicial Watch followed up with yet another FOIA request to DHS looking for the following information:

• Any and all records of, and/or records concerning, Department of Homeland Security briefings regarding a systematic review of pending immigration cases against suspected illegal immigrants in Houston, Texas.
• Any and all records of general guidelines issued to Department of Homeland Security attorneys, allowing dismissal of pending immigration cases.
• Any and all records detailing the determination and implementation of a systematic review of pending immigration cases against suspected illegal immigrants in Houston, Texas.
• Any and all correspondence with non-governmental organizations…concerning the process for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to give consideration of possible dismissal of pending immigration cases.

The DHS acknowledged receipt of our FOIA requests. However, to date the agency has failed to provide a single document. The agency has also failed to indicate when a response will be forthcoming. In both cases the statutory allotted timeframe for response has long since passed, which is why we sued. (Of course this is unsurprising. Reporting by The Associated Press suggests that the DHS’s political appointees have improperly delayed FOIA requests on politically sensitive topics. And this week Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Government and Reform Committee released a devastating report detailing this lawlessness.)

So what is this illegal alien deportation scandal all about?

As you know if you’ve been reading this space for some time, the Obama administration has been heavily criticized for its alleged plan to bypass Congress and enact “stealth amnesty” by executive fiat. In fact, in June 2010, the press uncovered a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service “draft” memo that outlined a variety of ways to grant legalization to illegal aliens without going through Congress. A couple of months later we learned this “stealth amnesty” plan was not a theoretical exercise. It was already in full operation.

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

• Obama Official Complains About Political Meddling In Public Records
• Border Patrol Union Blasts Napolitano
• Oregon Law Would Give Illegal Immigrants Cheaper Tuition
• U.S. Gives Obama Donor $500 Mil For “Green” Projects
• Jimmy Carter Bashes U.S. In Meeting With Communists
• Govt.-Bailed Mortgage Cos Paid Execs $35.4 Mil

According to the August 24, 2010, edition of The Houston Chronicle: “The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records…Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients’ deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing the cases.”

It appears the Obama administration has initiated a policy to selectively deport illegal alien lawbreakers, while allowing others off the hook entirely!

As I mentioned earlier, the President was asked to comment on these suspended deportations on Monday. And despite evidence to the contrary, Obama claimed that he has no such plan. “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president,” Obama said.

That is certainly true. But since when has the Obama administration cared a whit about immigration “laws on the books?” His Justice Department, while attacking Arizona’s get-tough illegal immigration law, has already announced it will not enforce federal immigration laws “on the books” to prosecute sanctuary cities. So why should deportations of illegal aliens be any different?

Obama may deny he has a plan to suspend deportations but this runs counter to the experience of immigration attorneys in Houston. And that’s why it’s critical that Homeland Security follows the open records FOIA law and turns over these records.

The American people need to know if the Obama administration has decided to flout our immigration laws (again) by enacting stealth amnesty for illegal aliens who are unlawfully here in the United States. And, as always, stonewalling by the “transparent” Obama administration suggests it has something to hide.

JW Obtains New Documents Detailing Controversial Provenge “Review”

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), under enormous public pressure, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for prostate cancer, be covered by insurance following a controversial “review.” A final decision on the issue is expected to be published 60 days after the public comment period for the proposed decision has ended.

On the same day as the CMS decision, Judicial Watch released hundreds of pages of documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing how and why the review was instituted. And here’s one of our major finds: While the Obama administration claimed the cost of Provenge had nothing to do with their review, these documents suggest otherwise. (Remember Medicare and the FDA are legally prohibited from denying approval of a medical treatment based solely on cost.)

As you may recall, we filed a FOIA request with HHS over Provenge after the press reported the CMS had taken the rare step of calling for a review Provenge to see if it is “reasonable and necessary” and should be covered by Medicaid and Medicare.

The move caused widespread panic among those patients who depend on the treatments to live, as well as anyone else who had heard all about health care rationing and “death panels” under Obamacare. (Let’s not forget, Obama named “Death Panel Donald” Berwick to head CMS and Berwick is on record supporting the idea of health care rationing, so these fears are not unfounded.)

When HHS stonewalled our FOIA request, we sued for the documents on January 3, 2011. And just this week we got our hands on some pretty interesting material.

Now, according to these new documents, the purpose of the Provenge review, deemed a National Coverage Determination (NCD), is to determine if the FDA-approved treatment should be reimbursed on a uniform and national level. The CMS claims the review was triggered by the fact that local Medicare contractors were not uniformly providing coverage for the Provenge, leading to multiple complaints by patients. Some contractors withdrew coverage in the middle of treatment.

Here are some other highlights from the documents, beginning with an interesting excerpt regarding the cost issue:

• The documents include a CMS Q&A sheet that denies cost was a factor in the decision to review Provenge. However, a June 8, 2010, internal email from William D. Rogers, Director of the CMS Physicians Regulatory Issues Team, to Louis B. Jacques, CMS Director of Coverage Analysis Group, states: "We discussed this on the last CMD [Contract Medical Director] call. $93,000 per treatment adds four months to life, 27,000 patients a year $2.6 billion dollars a year." Obama administration officials have denied that the review of Provenge had anything to do with the treatment’s costs.

• A July 28, 2010, letter to Louis Jacques from Hans Bishop, Chief Operating Officer of Dendreon, the company that manufactures Provenge, and Mark Frohlich, Dendreon’s Chief Medical Officer, objecting to the “highly unusual” review of Provenge.

  While noting the “overwhelming clinical evidence” of Provenge’s effectiveness, and the FDA’s rigorous approval process, Dendreon asked the CMS to shut down the NCD: “We remind you that the patients we serve have late-stage cancer and few, if any, appealing treatment options available to them, with only chemotherapy as an FDA-approved alternative. Not only is Provenge clearly reasonable and necessary…but it provides an unambiguous survival benefit and real hope for patients battling their disease.” Dendreon argued to keep the system’s status quo, with local contractors making coverage decisions as coverage variations have “subsided.” The letter also suggests that coverage is required by law as a result of the FDA’s prior approval of the Provenge treatment for prostate cancer.

• An internal CMS email indicating that the government hired health insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield, identified in public documents as an “external entity,” to conduct a technological assessment of Provenge’s clinical effectiveness. The involvement of Blue Cross Blue Shield raises serious concerns about a potential conflict of interest, as private insurers use Medicare’s coverage determinations in setting their own coverage limits.

• The documents include back-and-forth discussions between CMS and Dendreon about “comparative effectiveness.” In response to Dendreon’s request for clarification regarding the term “comparative effectiveness,” Jacque’s writes in a July 22, 2010, email to a CMS colleague: “Why do they need clarification?…We need to maintain an arms [sic] length relationship with them. We do no[t] owe them any questions.” Many have criticized comparative effectiveness research as a method to limit needed health care in order to reduce costs (i.e., death panels).

A number of the documents expressing concern over the review were distributed to CMS Administrator Donald Berwick himself.

Clearly, there is enormous public interest in the CMS decision to review Provenge, given all of the talk of health care rationing and death panels associated with Obamacare. The American people get very nervous when the government decides to meddle in their health care and they have every right to be nervous given that we have unaccountable czars like Donald Berwick running Medicare and Medicaid.

If you read these documents for yourself, you’ll see there was a strong bias against Provenge in the Obamacare bureaucracy. Fortunately, pressure from patients, the public, Congress and groups like Judicial Watch forced the government’s hand.

I’m willing to bet that HHS bureaucrats gave Provenge a pass (as the law seems to require), because they knew that Judicial Watch was set to expose their questionable decision-making process.

Still, this decision most certainly does not put an end to the issue of health care rationing. A recent study shows that in 2010, only two of the 11 National Coverage Determinations led to “unrestricted positive coverage decisions.” The remaining decisions mandated restrictions of coverage of one type or another.

Donald Berwick said it himself. It’s not a matter of if we ration healthcare, it’s a matter of when.

Judicial Watch Targets ACORN Voter Registration Fraud in Testimony before PA State Legislature

Voter fraud was front and center in the 2008 elections, with the “community organization” ACORN at the center of a slew of voter registration fraud scandals. Remember this is the same organization that paid “lazy crack heads” to fraudulently register voters, including names like “Mickey Mouse” and “Donald Duck.”

Well, Judicial Watch has taken the lead in exposing ACORN. As part of JW’s campaign, one of our attorneys, Michael Bekesha, provided testimony on March 21 to the Pennsylvania State Government Committee on Voter Fraud. Specifically, Michael provided his analysis of two pending Pennsylvania bills, HB 934 and HB 647.

As we head into election season again, voter registration fraud will continue to be a hot-button issue, especially since it appears ACORN has done nothing to mend its ways. At last count, approximately 27 states around the country are in the process of passing or have just enacted new laws to prevent voter fraud in the future. As the Supreme Court (Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4 (2006)) stated:

Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy. Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised.

We agree. So Michael took the trip to Harrisburg to give his analysis of the ways in which the integrity of the electoral process can be protected from ACORN and other corrupt groups. Here are a few excerpts from JW attorney Michael Bekesha’s testimony. (But I hope you’ll read it in full here.)

• As part of our mission to investigate and prosecute government corruption, Judicial Watch sought access to FBI records related to voter fraud. Specifically, we uncovered election law violations and voter fraud in Missouri and Connecticut. According to FBI records, in 2007, the FBI investigated and ultimately arrested eight St. Louis, Missouri, workers from the “community organization” Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for violation of election laws and voter fraud.

  The FBI records include handwritten notes from FBI investigators interviewing canvassers working with Project Vote, an ACORN affiliate. The FBI found that those working for Project Vote and ACORN sought to “cause confusion on election day to keep polls open longer,” “allow people who can’t vote to vote,” and “allow [people] to vote multiple times.” Moreover, the FBI found instances of canvassers thinking that if they “used a completely fake name it would be less like ID theft.” These are just a few examples of how voter fraud may occur. Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents.

• According to Judicial Watch’s ongoing investigation, ACORN and its various affiliates (most notably Project Vote) have been implicated in at least 35 well-documented election fraud schemes in 17 states.

• Reports of ACORN’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Although ACORN’s vast network has been nominally disbanded, many of its former state-level branches have been reconstituted as distinct and legally independent nonprofit entities. Nearly all of these “new” organizations are led by former ACORN executives and employees, and most occupy former ACORN office space. They continue to perform the same type of work that was previously done by ACORN, ACORN Housing, and their state-level offices. In essence, it is the same organization operating under different names.

• In Pennsylvania, after the last election, there were media reports that organizations, such as ACORN, were busing people from New Jersey and New York to vote in Philadelphia. Moreover, a former ACORN staffer pled guilty last year to charges stemming from his involvement in ACORN voter fraud in Pittsburgh. Six fellow ACORN employees were indicted along with him. In 2008, the organization was found to have submitted tens of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations in Philadelphia alone.”

During his testimony Michael also analyzed measures that states are taking to avoid voter registration fraud, including enhanced identification measures. And specifically, Michael provided his thoughts on the two pieces of Pennsylvania legislation intended to deal with this problem, which Michael deemed imperfect, but a “step in the right direction.”

As I say, please check out his full testimony. And look for an upcoming Judicial Watch special report on ACORN’s rebranded affiliates. More details to come.

Until next week…

Tom Fitton

Judicial Watch is a non-partisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life

Frustrated Judge Can't Stop ICE Deportation; A plaintiff suing ICE is deported

By Betsy Yagla
New Haven Advocate
Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A reluctant judge won’t allow an undocumented immigrant to stay in the country to pursue a lawsuit against the immigration agency that’s deporting him.

The 44-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, Washington Colala, was one of 32 immigrants swept up in a 2007 Fair Haven raid. The raid came on the heels of New Haven’s plan to offer ID cards to all residents, including immigrants.

The raid was seen as the federal government’s retaliation for a liberal city’s “sanctuary policies.”

Those arrested claimed their civil rights were trampled during the raids — Immigrant Customs and Enforcement agents did not identify themselves, forced their way into homes and searched homes without warrants.

Most of those arrested had no criminal history despite ICE’s claims that the agency only focuses on undocumented immigrants who are involved in serious crimes.

Now, as 11 of those 32 immigrants are seeking justice through a civil rights lawsuit against ICE, one of the key witnesses — Colala — is facing deportation. Colala’s attorneys claim it will be nearly impossible for him to participate in the lawsuit from his village in the Amazonian part of Ecuador.

Colala’s case was cited by national civil rights groups LatinoJustice and the National Council of La Raza in letters asking ICE to stop deporting plaintiffs in lawsuits against ICE.

“For us, it is about individuals whose rights need to be heard, who should have their day in court,” says La Raza legislative analyst Laura Vazquez explaining why La Raza is petitioning ICE to change its policy. “And in this country, we believe in the principle of equal justice before the law.”

That lofty goal was not met during an emergency hearing last week in U.S. district judge Stefan Underhill’s Bridgeport courtroom.

Underhill said he didn’t see any legal avenue for him to halt a decision — an immigration judge’s decision to deport Colala — made in another court.

Colala’s attorneys, Yale law students with The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization and supervising attorney Muneer Ahmad, argued that Underhill did have that authority: By keeping Colala in the country, Underhill could ensure a smooth court proceeding in the pending civil rights case.

Underhill asked Ahmad to cite any case in which a judge had done something similar. Ahmad couldn’t but insisted that Underhill had the “inherent authority” to do so.

“It’s surprising to me that I have an inherent authority to do this if there are no other cases like this,” replied Underhill.

That’s because there are so few cases like Colala’s, Ahmad said.

There are five states, including Connecticut, in which ICE is in the process of deporting plaintiffs in lawsuits against ICE, according to the National Council of La Raza.

It is rare that immigrants arrested in raids have lawyers fighting their deportation. It’s even rarer that they’re able to file civil rights lawsuits.

So if Colala — with a team of idealistic lawyers behind him — couldn’t win a deferral of his deportation, it doesn’t bode well for others.

Although Underhill expressed unwillingness to keep Colala in the country long enough to see through his civil rights case, the judge was clearly frustrated by the government.

“As a comment, to the extent that the government is doing this as a tactical maneuver, I think it is a very poor tactical move,” Underhill told the government attorneys.

The government’s attorney, Washington, D.C.-based Senior Litigation Counsel Christopher Dempsey, bristled.

“The United States is not removing Mr. Colala as a tactical matter,” he said. Dempsey argued that if any immigrant facing deportation could file a lawsuit against ICE and be allowed to remain in the country, “the immigration system in this country would come to a halt.”

But ICE can choose when, or if, to deport someone in the country illegally, says Brittney Nystrom, National Immigration Forum’s policy and legal affairs director.

“We would urge the department to at least announce a policy where they are willing to consider allowing individuals to finish their civil rights litigation,” Nystrom says.

“There’s nothing more American than justice for all and having one’s fair day in court,” she says. “We as a nation have built a civil and criminal justice system around that principal and equal protection.”

http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/featured-news/frustrated-judge-cant-stop-ice-deportation-037420

ICE Tries to Deport Immigrants Suing the Agency

Federal judge intervenes
By Betsy Yagla
New Have Advocate
December 08, 2010 12:00pm

Despite a lawsuit claiming immigration agents violated his constitutional rights when they drew their weapons, barged into his home and handcuffed him before identifying themselves, Washington Colala was set to be deported earlier this week.

A federal judge intervened at the 11th hour. Now Colala and his attorneys have one week to convince the judge why Colala should be allowed to stay in the country long enough to see through his civil rights lawsuit.

“This is a very meaningful decision for [Colala], because it allows him to fight for his own rights and the rights of others in similar situations,” says Mark Pedulla, one of Colala’s student attorneys at Yale’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization.

It was early morning on June 6, 2007, and Colala was on his way to work. He realized he’d forgotten something and returned to his Fair Haven home.

That’s when he was approached by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents who asked for identification. It was inside, he told them. With guns drawn, the agents told him to let them inside.

“I obeyed and did what they told me to do,” he said in a recent interview, using a Yale student attorney as an interpreter. Inside, he handed over his ID and was promptly handcuffed. He estimates it was about half an hour after he was handcuffed that the agents identified themselves.

Colala called the arrest “humiliating.”

Colala is one of 32 swept up in a series of raids in 2007 that came days after New Haven aldermen approved a program to provide IDs to city residents regardless of immigration status. The raids were widely seen as retaliation for the program.

After the raid, ICE began deportation proceedings against the immigrants. With the help of Yale student attorneys, the immigrants continue to fight their deportations, raising legal claims of constitutional violations. (Some won their cases and ICE is appealing; others lost and are appealing.) Colala had a different attorney who raised different legal issues to fight his deportation. He lost the case and then lost on appeal too.

In November, ICE told Colala to buy a plane ticket and leave the country by Dec. 6.

The rush to deport him is raising eyebrows, because Colala is a key witness in a civil rights lawsuit filed by himself and 10 others alleging ICE violated their constitutional rights by not identifying themselves, by forcing their way into their homes and searching them without warrants.

The same lawsuit alleges ICE officials knew the agency had a pattern of conducting “warrantless home invasions, racial profiling, coercive questioning, arresting individuals without probable cause, detaining individuals without reasonable suspicion, and denying detainees access to counsel and telephones.”

“We are so puzzled by why ICE is trying to expedite this [deportation],” Yale Law student Rebecca Scholtz said just days before Colala was scheduled to leave the country. “It gives the impression that ICE is trying to avoid liability.”

An ICE spokesman did not return a call for comment.

Clearly, it’s to ICE’s advantage to deport Colala and people like him who’ve filed lawsuits against the agency, says Muneer Ahmad, a Yale Law professor and the supervisory attorney for the immigrants’ case.

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The Yale student attorneys will argue in front of Judge Stefan Underhill this week about why Colala should be allowed to stay through the duration of his lawsuit.

Colala isn’t the only immigrant in this situation.

Two national advocacy groups, the National Council of La Raza and Latino Justice, recently wrote letters to ICE director John Morton, demanding a change in policy.

Immigrants with valid civil rights claims pending against ICE are being deported from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Florida and California, the letters state.

“ICE’s policy of removing individuals whose rights have been violated — before they have had their day in court — also violates the fundamental principle of equal justice before the law, and has no place in a nation committed to democracy,” reads the letter from Latino Justice.

Both groups are asking that ICE adopt a policy to allow immigrants with civil rights complaints to remain in the country until their trial is completed.

From Ecuador it will be virtually impossible for Colala to participate in his lawsuit. The spotty telecommunications in the Pastaza province mean he won’t be able to speak frequently with his attorneys to assist in the case. He’ll also never get the chance to tell his story to a federal judge.

http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/featured-news/ice-tries-to-deport-immigrants-suing-the-agency-037357

Judge Delays Deportation

By Betsy Yagla
New Haven Advocate
Friday, December 03, 2010

Washington Colala’s deportation has been put on hold for a week, thanks to U.S. district court judge Stefan Underhill.

Colala was scheduled to be deported on Monday Dec. 6 to Ecuador—he’d even bought his plane ticket—despite the fact that Colala has a pending civil rights lawsuit against Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the agency moving to deport him.

"This is a very meaningful decision for [Colala] because it allows him to fight for his own rights and the rights of others in similar situations," said Mark Pedulla, one of Colala's Yale Law student attorneys.

Colala is "delighted," says Pedulla.

Colala is one of 11 plaintiffs suing ICE, claiming their civil rights were violated in a June 2007 raid in Fair Haven. The raid came two days after New Haven aldermen voted to approve the city’s ID card program available to all residents regardless of their immigration status.

Colala and more than 30 immigrants were arrested in the raids and ICE began deportation proceedings against them. Some of the 30 have left voluntarily, others legal removal cases are still pending in immigration court.

Colala’s appeals have been exhausted.

He is one of many undocumented immigrants across the country fighting to stay here until they are able to complete their civil rights cases against the immigration agency.

After a conference call today between Colala’s Yale student lawyers and Judge Underhill, Underhill ruled to stay—or delay—Colala’s deportation for one week.

Underhill has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, Dec. 9 to decide whether Colala will be allowed to remain in the country to see through his civil rights lawsuit.

Colala is the father of four children, two of whom were born in the U.S. He’s been in the country for 15 years, working in the construction field. He says his children and wife depend on him “100 percent” and supporting them economically will be difficult in Ecuador.

Another thing that will be difficult, or virtually impossible, from Ecuador: Participating in his lawsuit against ICE.

Colala says that on the morning of June 6, 2007 he was outside his home when he was approached by immigration officials. They asked for his ID and he said it was inside. Then, guns drawn, they told Colala to let them into his house. Colala obeyed, showed them his ID and then was handcuffed.

He says it was about half an hour after he was handcuffed that the agents identified themselves.

http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/drive-by-media/judge-delays-deportation-035643

350 immigrants held more than 6 months while fighting deportation, U.S. says

ACLU sought detainees' names as part of a class-action lawsuit seeking their release until the cases are resolved.

By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2010

More than 350 immigrant detainees in the Los Angeles area have been held behind bars longer than six months while fighting deportation, according to a list recently released by the federal government.

The list of names was turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California late last month as part of a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The ACLU is battling for the right of detainees held for six months or more to have hearings on whether they can be released from custody while their cases are pending.

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the lawsuit. The department opposed releasing the names but was ordered to do so by a federal judge. Its lawyers are continuing to oppose the bond hearings.

Ahilan Arulanantham, who directs the immigrants' rights and national security program for the ACLU of Southern California, said he was shocked that so many immigrants were being held in detention for longer than six months.

"That number just dwarfs the number we expected," he said.

There are about 1,400 immigrant detainees in the area. There is generally no limit on the length of time immigrants are detained as long as their cases are not yet resolved. In addition, few detainees are guaranteed a right to a bond hearing.

The team of attorneys is sending letters to its clients. Many of the class members are seeking asylum and some have been held for years. At least 30% were never represented by an attorney, Arulanantham said.

Arulanantham, who filed the suit along with the Stanford Immigrants' Rights Clinic and the law firm of Sidley and Austin, said lawyers chose the six-month mark based on other case law on detention and due process rights.

One of the class members, Damdin Borjgin, a Mongolian man seeking asylum in the United States, has been in custody at Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster since November 2007. Borjgin said he has never had a hearing to see if he would be eligible for release.

"I didn't think I would be locked up in the jail for this much time," Borjgin said through an interpreter in a recent interview. "I am living here as a prisoner. My rights are limited."

Borjgin, 49, first came to the United States in 1999 on a visitor's visa, overstayed that visa and then returned to his native country in 2007 because his father was ill. Borjgin said he discovered possible corruption at the national bank where he worked and reported it to police. As a result, Borjgin said, he was detained and pressured to withdraw the case because it was "damaging the reputation of a high-ranking political official."

Afraid for his safety, he said he obtained a false passport and came to the United States, where he was detained at Los Angeles International Airport and taken to the detention center.

Borjgin, who has a wife and two grown children in Mongolia, said he cannot return to his native country. "It's a danger to my life," he said.

Borjgin, who did not have an attorney, lost his case in Immigration Court and at the Board of Immigration Appeals. The case now is pending in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Arulanantham said Borjgin should be entitled to a hearing and released from detention because he has not committed a crime and is not a flight risk or a danger to the community. Instead, he said, the government could require him to wear an electronic ankle bracelet or have him regularly check in with immigration officials.

Currently, only certain immigrant detainees are entitled to bond hearings. If foreigners are arrested upon arrival in the United States, they cannot request a bond hearing. Detainees who have committed certain crimes or who have lost their cases and have final orders of deportation are also not eligible for bond hearings. Detainees who cannot be deported within six months of the conclusion of the case may be entitled to be released.

Arulanantham said that the irony is that under the revamped detention system, Borjgin might have never been placed behind bars in the first place. Immigration officials now release arriving asylum seekers from detention if they have a credible fear of persecution, prove their identity and pose neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

"ICE's detention capacity is not unlimited," said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We want to ensure we're using our detention resources to keep criminals and other dangerous aliens in custody while we seek their removal from the country."

The change was part of an overhaul of the detention system announced last year. John Morton, the chief of the immigration agency, said he would make immigration detention less reliant on prisons and jails and more specifically designed for civil detainees.

Since the announcement, the agency has reduced the number of detention facilities nationwide from 341 to 270 and canceled contracts at 10 sites because of reported problems. Visitation, recreation and legal access also have been expanded at more than 20 facilities.

latimes.com

Lawyers Target 'Assembly Line' Practice, Abuse of Poor Immigrants

By Mark Hamblett
The New York Law Journal
January 4, 2010

A movement in the New York legal community to increase pro bono representation of indigent immigrants and weed out incompetent or unscrupulous lawyers who prey on them is gathering momentum.

A group of some 40 to 50 lawyers has been meeting regularly to analyze what is widely regarded as a broken system where many indigent immigrants lack the information and advice they need about asylum applications and other immigration procedures.

The meetings, held periodically at the federal courthouse, were initiated by 2nd Circuit Judge Robert Katzmann, who has made addressing the unmet needs of the immigrant poor his signature issue.

"This is a unique effort, and it's the kind of effort that can be replicated in other circuits." Judge Katzmann said in a recent interview. "You have lawyers, as part of their responsibility to the larger community, willing to roll up their sleeves and think conceptually about how to best improve the delivery of services to the poor."

Judge Katzmann used a February 2007 lecture at the New York City Bar to enlist lawyers in that effort. He said that in response to his comments, groups such as the Federal Bar Council and the American Bar Association sharpened their focus on immigration issues, and law schools created immigration clinics.

But to further press the issue, Judge Katzmann, along with Southern District Judge Denny Chin, began convening small groups of lawyers from large and small firms, agencies and universities, at 500 Pearl St. in Manhattan every six weeks to brainstorm on how to increase pro bono representation in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Asylum cases regularly swamp the circuit's docket, and some lawyers practice what has been called "assembly line" immigration law, representing hundreds of clients, sometimes poorly.

The study group's ideas for improving representation and attracting more attorneys to the campaign were explored during a March 2009 forum at Fordham Law School.

Afterward, the study group broke into three subcommittees, one to focus on increasing pro bono activity, a second to look at "improving the delivery of services to the immigrant poor" and a third to address inadequate or unethical representation.

The conclusions of the three subcommittees, plus additional commentary, are presented in the November Fordham Law Review: "The Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture, Overcoming Barriers to Immigrant Representation: Exploring Solutions." The materials considered by the study group can be seen at http://law.fordham.edu/fordham-law-review/15905.htm.

INCREASED DEMAND

The pro bono subcommittee's report, "The Representational and Counseling Needs of the Immigrant Poor" found that "demand outstripped capacity at all levels" for services, including initial counseling of immigrants, the delivery of applications for immigrant benefits, the filing of appeals and responding to notices of removal or deportation.

The demand, the subcommittee said, "has achieved near-crisis proportions," and has been exacerbated by increases in workplace raids and other enforcement activities by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The subcommittee concluded that, short of a dramatic rise in funding at all levels or possible reforms such as permitting appointment of counsel paid for by the government, any increase in the recruitment, training and supervision of more lawyers must come from nonprofit legal service organizations, bar groups, local lawyers, law schools and the generosity of public and private contributors.

The report also lists testimonials from major law firms that helped secure relief for immigrants who were appearing pro se and highlights clinical programs at law schools in New York and Connecticut.

The pro bono report was produced by Jennifer L. Colyer, special counsel and pro bono counsel at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Robert Juceam, of counsel at Fried Frank; Sarah French Russell, the Liman program director at Yale Law School; and Lewis J. Liman, a partner with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

The second subcommittee report on improving service delivery, "The Immigration Representation Project: Meeting the Critical Needs of Low-Wage and Indigent New Yorkers Facing Removal," was written by Jojo Annobil, attorney in charge of the immigration law unit at the Legal Aid Society and an adjunct clinical professor at New York University School of Law.

Ms. Annobil said that the dramatic increase in enforcement actions against "asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants and permanent residents with criminal convictions and other immigration violations has resulted in a deepening due process crisis."

A second report from the subcommittee on improving service delivery, "Barriers to Representation for Detained Immigrants Facing Deportation" presents a case study on problems facing immigrants detained at the Varick Street Detention Facility in Manhattan and addresses the problems facing overwhelmed immigration judges who deal with thousands of pro se litigants, and, the "cancer of disreputable elements of the immigration bar."

The author of that report, Peter L. Markowitz, assistant professor of law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, emphasized that one of the problems "at the heart" of the immigration representation crisis is that there is no right to counsel in immigration proceedings.

SCAM ARTISTS

The third subcommittee report, "Regulating Immigration Legal Service Providers, Inadequate Representation and Notario Fraud," addresses the exploitation of immigrants.

"Immigrants are often easy prey for bogus or incompetent attorneys, 'notarios,' scam artists, and other bad actors who take advantage of immigrants' limited knowledge of U.S. law, lack of English fluency, and lack of cultural knowledge to charge exorbitant fees for wild promises of green cards and citizenship that the bad actors cannot, and in some cases never intended to, deliver," wrote Careen Shannon, of counsel at Fragoman, Del Ray, Bernsen & Loewy.

But this exploitation, she said, "is merely a symptom" of the larger problem of inadequate access to competent legal counsel, and Shannon advocates several changes to local, state and federal law and policy to help improve that access. Among the changes recommended is a toughening of the law on the unauthorized practice of law, by, for example, making it a felony.

Also among the study group's efforts has been a focus on training. The group convened a meeting of legal service providers and community organizations at Cardozo in April 2009 to assist in the training and placement of deferred and furloughed law firm associates.

That was followed by a September training session at Cardozo, and in October, the announcement by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of a plan to partner with private law firms to send deferred associates into immigrant communities, as well as a $2 million city grant to support a team of supervising attorneys to train associates and provide technical support.

For Judge Katzmann, who said he has witnessed first-hand poor immigration lawyering in the 2nd Circuit, the idea behind the study group and the subcommittee reports is to raise awareness and build momentum for serious change.

There is much to do, he said, but the involvement of so many lawyers is a promising sign.

"As a judge who feels frustrated by all-too-inadequate counsel, it is encouraging and energizing to see this extraordinary group of lawyers so dedicated to urging the larger legal community to get involved in improving representation for immigrants," Judge Katzmann said.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202437368127&Lawyers_Target_Assembly_Line_Practice_Abuse_of_Poor_Immigrants

Putting Heat On ICE

Immigrants use civil lawsuits to protest raids by federal agents
Connecticut Law Tribune
By CHRISTIAN NOLAN
Monday, November 16, 2009
Copyright 2009, ALM Properties, Inc.

In May 2006, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency launched “Operation Return To Sender.” The goal: track down, arrest and deport undocumented immigrants, particularly felons, gang members and other dangerous types.

Since then, ICE agents have conducted scores of raids on homes and workplaces. Advocacy groups and lawyers say some agents have been overly zealous, and the advocates have regularly gone to court to try to void arrests and block deportations. But in what seems to be a small, but significant trend, some have also gone on the offensive, filing civil lawsuits against ICE and its agents.

The most recent example is in Connecticut, where a Yale School of Law legal clinic has filed suit on behalf of 10 undocumented immigrants whose homes were raided in June 2007. Immigration attorneys differ on whether the claim has much chance of success. But most agree that litigation is an interesting strategy that could buy time in America for the clients and give ICE officials reason to reconsider tactics.

Attorney Alex Meyerovich, of Bridgeport’s M.C. Law Group, called the lawsuit part of a “cat and mouse game” between federal agents and advocates for immigrants. Similar claims have been filed following sweeps on immigrant homes in New Jersey, New York, Georgia and Northern California in recent years.

“What Yale is trying to do is to intimidate ICE,” said Meyerovich. “To show there is a potential liability if they step over an invisible border. It doesn’t matter if [the lawsuit] succeeds or fails. It’s an important power struggle.”

Meyerovich has few kind words for ICE agents, calling some of them “vigilantes.” But he also would not endorse the civil rights lawsuit. “If illegal immigrants succeed in this lawsuit, the message might come out, if you come into the country illegally and get arrested, your rights were violated. I think it’s the wrong message.”

ID Card Controversy

In the spring of 2007, New Haven officials decided to make ID cards available to all residents, including illegal immigrants. They said the cards would bring the newcomers into the mainstream by giving them a means to open bank accounts and access other services. The decision stirred up a furor. Some national commentators lamented that New Haven was turning into a safe haven for illegal immigrants.

Just days after the first cards were issued, ICE agents entered homes and arrested 29 immigrants. There was rampant speculation that the sweeps were in response to the new policy. But ICE officials maintained they were simply carrying out their mission and were not punishing New Haven.

Nevertheless, a team of students at Yale’s Immigration Clinic, which is part of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, went to federal immigration court in Hartford to request full hearings for the detainees. Not only were they granted hearings, but they eventually persuaded the judge to temporarily halt deportation proceedings for a number of the immigrants. An immigration judge this summer ruled that the government “egregiously violated” the Fourth Amendment rights of the immigrants by entering homes forcibly without warrants.

Then last month the Yale students filed their lawsuit against 18 ICE agents and the United States. Citing e-mail messages between federal officials obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, the plaintiffs attempt to show hostility to the ID card program and intent to stop it. The lawsuit cites a conference call between ICE officials and prosecutors in which they discussed the “headaches in New Haven.”

One e-mail from an ICE attorney stated: “Yale is loading up the Amistad with illegal immigrants and sailing them to freedom, while [ICE counsel] openly weeps in Hartford.” The reference was to the 18th century slave ship commandeered by African captives who eventually won their freedom.

The lawsuit alleges ICE agents broke into homes without search warrants or consent, arrested residents based on their race or ethnicity, and violated the immigrants’ Fourth, Fifth and 10th Amendment rights. The suit seeks declaratory relief and monetary compensation for the immigrants.

“The people who planned the raids had a retaliatory motive,” said Ana Muñoz, a third-year law student working on the case. “People in D.C. knew their raid teams were violating the Constitution left and right and still agreed to approve this particular raid.”

Tom Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut, said the office would likely defend the lawsuit and that it had no comment. But Jeffrey Meyer, a former assistant U.S. attorney who now teaches at Quinnipiac University School of Law, said the government will almost certainly use sovereign immunity as a defense, and the agents will use qualified immunity. Federal agents are generally exempt from civil liability for on-the-job actions.

However, the Yale clinic filed its suit under the Federal Torts Claim Act, which allows plaintiffs to collect damages if federal officials commit a tort in violation of state law. The plaintiffs must do more than prove that the agents made mistakes or used poor discretion, Meyer said. The plaintiffs must prove that the agents knowingly violated “a clearly established legal rule.”

He provided this example: An agent with a warrant going into the wrong home could likely successfully assert immunity. But an agent kicking in the door of a residence with no warrant at all could be the violation of a clearly established legal rule.

Meyer predicted that while ICE would have a hard time getting the lawsuit dismissed, the immigrants would have to clear a “high hurdle” to win in court. “The outcome is going to depend on a fact-intensive review of whether these officers were acting reasonably in conducting these raids,” said Meyer. “They’re entitled to seek to detain persons who are here illegally in the country. The question is, how do they go about doing that?”

'Raw Force’

The hurdles Meyer mentioned have not stopped suits from being filed.

In 2007, nearly two dozen plaintiffs filed a class action against ICE after sweeps in New York City and on Long Island. The complaint alleges that ICE agents entered homes with submachine guns and shotguns, in one instance, pointing a gun at a man’s chest before searching his home without a warrant.

In April 2008, the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University Law School filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 New Jersey plaintiffs who contend that ICE agents used “deceit or, in some cases, raw force” to gain “unlawful entry.” The lawsuit claims that agents, sometimes misrepresenting themselves as police officers hunting for criminals, entered homes and detained residents without showing any legal cause.

In Atlanta in 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit claiming ICE agents harassed five U.S. citizens of Mexican descent because of their appearance during sweeps targeting illegal immigrants in southern Georgia. The lawsuit also claimed agents unlawfully searched homes and detained people merely because they looked Mexican.

Mary Bauer, legal affairs director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that such lawsuits became something of a trend in the years after ICE launched Operation Return To Sender. “I’m not sure people would do these cases for the money,” Bauer said. “Our clients did it for the principle. The point of this lawsuit was to change public policy, and to ask, ‘Is this what we want our government to do in the name of strict enforcement?’”

Bauer said the Georgia plaintiffs settled their lawsuit this summer and were awarded monetary damages.

Nevertheless, Connecticut attorneys say the New Haven immigrants face an uphill legal battle. For instance, they say that because immigration law is civil and not criminal, ICE agents have wider latitude in conducting searches than do police.

“From my perspective, I think it’s going to be a very tough case to win,” said Douglas R. Penn, of Stamford’s Barr & LaCava, who chairs the Connecticut chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Still, Penn believes the case is worthwhile. “I think it’s good to try to establish some set of standards” for ICE.

Another immigration attorney broached the touchy topic of whether illegal immigrants even have constitutional protections. “I don’t think they have much of a leg to stand on,” said Daniel Marcus, of Globman and Marcus P.C. in Hartford. “If I were a federal court judge, I’d say these people were here illegally and we don’t see how [ICE] infringed on their constitutional rights in anyway.”

Marcus called the lawsuit “a scholarly exercise that will wind up being futile.” He added: “Yale is doing whatever it can to keep these people here. That’s the basis of this. They’re trying to prolong their stays.”

But a lawyer with the Hartford immigration firm of Leete, Kosto & Wizner said she plans to keep close tabs on the case. “This is well-crafted, well-researched and certainly not frivolous,” said Virginia Carstens. This “is relatively unusual, particularly for immigration practitioners who are so focused on individual clients in removal proceedings. Most don’t venture into the Federal Tort Claims Act and some of the real constitutional claims raised here.”

http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=35524

ICE officials dispute appeals court ruling in Willmar raids

by Jessica Mador
Minnesota Public Radio
September 17, 2009

St. Paul, Minn. — Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement are disputing a state appeals court ruling that ICE agents violated the constitutional rights of an illegal immigrant during a raid in Willmar two years ago.

The Minnesota Appeals Court earlier this week ruled that because immigration agents did not have a warrant when they searched her house and interrogated her, the evidence used to convict her later in Kandiyohi County violated the Fourth Amendment.

Iris Janeth Maldonado-Arreaga was arrested after immigration raids in Willmar and has since been deported to Honduras.

Tim Counts, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, denied that ICE agents committed any Fourth Amendment violations. He says ICE officers received express permission to enter Arreaga's home before they searched it.

"It is absolutely legal to enter the house and search if you obtain permission from the occupant and this is something that is frequently and purposely confused by those who defend some of these individuals. They say there was no search warrant, therefore it was a constitutional violation," Counts said. "It's not - because we obtained permission from the occupant to enter the house before entering."

He says it's true that ICE officers did not have a search warrant to enter the home but that the Fourth Amendment allows officers to obtain express permission to search a home in the absence of a search warrant.

Immigration attorney Rachel E.B. Lang, who was not an attorney in this case, says the court's ruling makes clear that ICE agents violated the constitution.

"The reason for that is that you don't know what someone's immigration status is before you talk to them, so you can't break into someone's house to talk to them because you think they are an illegal immigrant because you don't know who is in the house," Lang said.

Lang had previously served as Arreaga's immigration attorney in a separate case

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/17/immigration-conviction-willmar/

Homeland-security employee sues over immigration search

The Arizona Republic
by Dennis Wagner

A Department of Homeland Security employee in Yuma is suing his own agency over an illegal search by immigration officers who he said mistakenly stormed his home in search of an undocumented immigrant.

Jimmy Slaughter, a K-9 handler at the U.S. border crossing in San Luis, said in District Court papers that he and his wife, Sheila, have lived in their home for more than a decade and did not know the woman sought by a half-dozen agents who came to his door with guns drawn.

"Is this the agency which protects our country?" Slaughter asked in an affidavit attached to the lawsuit. " . . . Now my neighbors are wondering or believe I am just another 'DIRTY COP!' I have served my country proudly for 23 years in the Marine Corps and six years as a Customs K-9 handler. I bleed Red, White and Blue."

The U.S. Attorney's Office has asked a judge to dismiss the complaint, arguing that agents left the house once they realized their mistake, so the Slaughters have no basis for a claim.

The Yuma incident was cited in a study released last week by the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic as an example of Fourth Amendment violations that some say became commonplace during immigration raids in 2006 and 2007.

The report said investigators with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency engaged in a "pattern of misconduct" by entering homes illegally, seizing innocent residents based on ethnicity and conducting unlawful searches.

The Slaughters' lawsuit accuses ICE of "unconscionable" conduct during the July 2008 raid. The suit stated agents entered a private residence without probable cause, looking for a woman whose mail had been incorrectly sent to the Slaughters' address for several years.

In the affidavit, Jimmy Slaughter claims he opened a screen door and asked to see legal papers, but agents barged past him "and told my wife to stand in the center of OUR living room. . . . Not once did anyone say they had a warrant."

Slaughter said agents backed off after he identified himself as a Homeland Security employee. But the affidavit ends by noting that an ICE supervisor was dismissive when he called to complain.

The Slaughters are seeking $1.5 million in damages.

Researchers at the Cardozo School of Law focus mostly on ICE raids along the East Coast but contend that the illegal searches occur nationwide.

They claim the justice system fails to protect the rights of low-income Hispanics who lack resources to fight for constitutional protections. Even those who defend themselves in immigration court are unlikely to succeed in suppressing evidence gained from unlawful searches, the report said.

During a forum in Phoenix last week, Jaya Vasandani, one of the report's authors, said ICE agents illegally entered homes in more than three-quarters of the incidents reviewed. Although residential raids are designed to target criminal aliens, she said, two-thirds of the arrestees had no felony record.

Vasandani added that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano already has taken "positive steps" to end practices that preceded the Obama administration.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/07/26/20090726dhs-suit0726.html

Report: NY, NJ immigration raids violated rights

By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press
July 23, 2009

NEW YORK — Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.

Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.

The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.

Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident's consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.

On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.

Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.

The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.

While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.

A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.

"The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody," Markowitz said.

In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country's laws.

"We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter," it said.

The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.

The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.

The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.

Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn't contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.

The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.

It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.

"These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country," Markowitz said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jE_zsdA7eB5XpncPXAxlqGHIwufAD99J8U602

ICE 101: Immigration on the Legal Front Line

ICE 101: Immigration on the Legal Front Line
26 March 2009
By STEVE SALDIVAR
Mission Local

On a recent Thursday evening, a new type of army began assembling in a nondescript Steuart Street conference room. The 24 men and women—most dressed in business attire—were to be part of a quick reaction force.

Their objective: set free the rising numbers of undocumented workers detained in federal immigration raids in neighborhoods like the Mission. These foot soldiers—all Bay Area lawyers by day—were about to learn their rules of engagement.

“You have to get to your client as soon as possible,” said Sin Yen Ling, an attorney who works closely with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco

“There’s no policy. In many cases the law is still unwritten,” she said. “It’s balls to the wall.”

Ling is part of an effort lead by both by The Equal Justice Society and the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, advocacy groups aimed at counseling new and settled immigrants, to develop and teach area lawyers to effectively counter the increase in immigration raids by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Ling and Francisco Ugarte, a 5-year Mission District resident and immigration attorney for Dolores Street Community Services, have opened this crash course in immigration law to any interested lawyer with hopes of building a new Rapid Response Network- lawyers working pro bono for ICE detainees.

The two-hour boot camp was designed to give attorneys an introduction to navigating what can seem to be a bewildering bureaucracy of the federal immigration and detention system.

These training sessions come at a time when ICE activity is escalating. Last September, Fugitive Operations Teams arrested more than 1157, including 436 in northern California. 20 percent of those in custody had criminal histories and were in the country illegally, according to ICE.

http://missionlocal.org/2009/03/ice-101/

Immigrant raids targeted people with no criminal record, report says

Immigrant raids targeted people with no criminal record, report says
Posted by Maureen Sieh
The Post-Standard
February 04, 2009

Three years ago, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement created Operation Return to Sender, an effort designed to crack down on illegal immigrants with criminal records, deportation orders and terrorism suspects.

But a report released today said the program increasingly arrested immigrants with no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them.

The report released by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C., found that nearly three-quarters of the 96,000 people arrested had no criminal record.

The institute analyzed arrest data from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Here's the full story in today's today's New York Times.

The report found that the program shifted its focus from targeting ''dangerous immigrants'' to easy targets without Congressional approval. The program garnered millions in federal dollars because officials told Congress that they would target the most threatening immigrants---criminals and terrorism suspects.

The report supports claims by advocacy groups who contend that teams of armed agents increasingly entered homes indiscriminately and often targeted immigrants with no criminal record or deportation order.

In Central New York, the Works' Rights Group, a local task force has been a leading voice for migrant workers and immigrants detained in the area. The group, based in Syracuse, has raised awareness about racial profiling on trains and buses and the lack of health care for migrant workers and the impact of border patrol raids on families.

http://blog.syracuse.com/metrovoices/2009/02/immigrant_raids_targeted_peopl.html