The Connecticut Law Review
Monday, September 12, 2011
The Editorials on this page are the product of the Editorial Board. The views expressed are not necessarily those of any individual Board Member or of the Law Tribune’s management. The Editorial Board has no role in the management of the Law Tribune.
In the wake of mounting concern over its detention and deportation practices, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in June announced policy guidelines regarding the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in removal cases. Critics argue that ICE enforcement programs, designed to target and deport illegal immigrants identified as dangerous felons, instead have fostered community insecurity by seizing and deporting thousands of non-citizens with no criminal records or evidence of dangerousness. Indiscriminate enforcement actions are seen as deterring victims, witnesses, and plaintiffs from calling police and pursuing justice for fear of coming to the attention of ICE.
A notable local example occurred early on a June morning in 2007, when armed ICE agents descended on a primarily Latino neighborhood in New Haven. Without warrants or consent and without notice to local authorities, the agents raided numerous private residences and arrested 29 of the occupants. Eleven of those arrested, who were held in custody for days and, in some cases weeks, subsequently sued, alleging that the agents forced their way into their homes illegally, thereby violating their rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and 10th Amendments.
The 11 plaintiffs are represented by Yale Law School’s Jerome Frank Legal Services Organization. The plaintiffs, none of whom are fugitives, argue that the raids were not part of routine immigration enforcement. Instead, citing e-mails between federal officials as evidence, they claim that the raids were in retaliation against the City of New Haven for its decision to issue optional “Elm City Resident Cards” to all residents regardless of their legal status.
Washington Colala is one of those arrested in the 2007 raids. Although he posed no criminal or national security threat, and had a 15-year work history with the community, he was swiftly put into immigration proceedings and a removal order was issued. While he was appealing the removal order, his civil rights case was filed, naming him as one of the 11 plaintiffs. In addition, Colala is the primary witness for his roommate, also a plaintiff. After Colala lost his last appeal and deportation was imminent, his lawyers obtained a temporary stay so they could make their arguments before the federal judge assigned to the civil rights action.
Colala’s bid to stay in the country was denied last December by a sympathetic judge, Judge Stefan Underhill, who could find no basis in the law to forestall deportation orders issued by an immigration court and upheld by an appeals court. Clinic lawyers appealed to ICE Director John Morton to exercise discretion to allow Colala to remain in the country until his civil rights case is concluded. Ultimately, ICE consented to postpone Colala’s deportation for the duration of the lawsuit.
In June of this year, Director Morton issued a new policy regarding the use of prosecutorial discretion in similar situations. In a memo entitled “Certain Victims, Witnesses, and Plaintiffs” he directs that: “Absent special circumstances, it is … against ICE policy to remove individuals in the midst of a legitimate effort to protect their civil rights or liberties.”
A second memo calls on ICE officials to refrain from pursuing non-citizens with close family, educational, military, or other ties to the U.S. and instead focus on persons who pose a serious threat to public safety or national security. It establishes that ICE employees are to consider prosecutorial discretion on a case-by case basis, “without waiting for an alien or alien’s advocate or counsel to request a favorable exercise of discretion.”
Director Morton’s memos make ICE policy clear that prosecutors have, and should exercise, discretion to refrain from pursuing low-priority targets and victims of crime or civil rights violations. However, we note that prosecutorial discretion is a central feature in law enforcement generally, and should not be viewed as extraordinary in the immigration context. Furthermore, the memos establish no guidelines for discretionary review, and include no reporting requirements. At a minimum, ICE employees must be trained to apply the discretionary factors to each case, and to be held accountable when the policies set forth in the memos are not followed.
Unfortunately, even the minimal protections outlined in the Morton memos have already drawn the wrath of some members of Congress. Texas Rep. Lamar Smith immediately introduced a bill titled “Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation Act” (or HALT), which would suspend discretionary enforcement until Jan. 21, 2013 — the day after the first Obama Administration ends.
This type of enforcement-only legislation is exactly the wrong way to address the overwhelming problems in our broken immigration system. We need comprehensive immigration reforms that account for current labor needs, end racial profiling, and provide immigrants with the rights expected under a civilized system of justice. Detaining more immigrants — as would happen if prosecutors had no discretionary authority under the HALT bill — diverts scarce enforcement resources away from the pursuit of dangerous criminals and exacts a needless human toll. A humane and rational system of justice would give eligible undocumented migrants some sort of official status — such as the New Haven Resident Cards and the Dream Act provide — that will bring them out of the shadows, into the workforce, and onto a path towards citizenship.
http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=41560
Showing posts with label Expulsions in CT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in CT. Show all posts
Monday, September 12, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Lawsuit Spurs New Policy On Deportation
ICE Will Hold Off If Immigrants Part Of Civil Rights Actions Or Labor Complaints
By MARK SPENCER
The Hartford Courant
July 5, 2011
A civil rights lawsuit brought by an undocumented immigrant in Connecticut facing deportation has prompted federal officials to adopt a new policy that will have a national impact.
Washington Colala was just days from being deported to Ecuador in December when federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reversed an earlier decision and let him stay to pursue a civil rights lawsuit concerning controversial ICE raids in New Haven in 2007.
While seeking a deportation delay for Colala, his attorneys and other immigration advocates also asked ICE to avoid deporting any undocumented immigrant involved in a civil right lawsuit or a labor complaint.
In a letter sent earlier this month to field offices and agents, ICE Director John Morton said that, absent special circumstances, it is "against ICE policy to remove individuals in the midst of a legitimate effort to protect their civil rights or civil liberties."
Colala is both a plaintiff and key witness in the civil rights lawsuit currently pending in federal court in Bridgeport, said his attorney, Michael Wishnie, a Yale Law School professor with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. He said it would have been nearly impossible for Colala to be a part of the suit had he been deported.
Yale lawyers were joined by representatives of immigrants' rights groups, labor unions and faith-based organizations in pushing ICE to adopt the policy. The new policy is similar to ICE rules that discourage the deportation of immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal cases.
"We believe people who have a civil rights claim should be able to meaningfully participate and have their voices heard," said Laura Vazquez, an immigration legislative analyst with the National Council of La Raza in Washington.
Colala was among 32 immigrants detained in ICE raids in New Haven in June 2007. Some advocates thought the raids were retaliation for New Haven adopting a resident identification card system, which was available to undocumented immigrants.
Yale lawyers represented 17 of those detained in federal immigration court and five of the cases have been dismissed because of constitutional problems with how the raids were conducted. Some of the immigrants have since become legal, while other cases remain in court.
Ten of the immigrants, including Colala, filed the civil rights lawsuit.
"They're harming people who really don't do any damage," Colala said through an interpreter. "We're just people who are working hard to support our families."
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-colala-ice-0703-20110702,0,6908726.story
By MARK SPENCER
The Hartford Courant
July 5, 2011
A civil rights lawsuit brought by an undocumented immigrant in Connecticut facing deportation has prompted federal officials to adopt a new policy that will have a national impact.
Washington Colala was just days from being deported to Ecuador in December when federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reversed an earlier decision and let him stay to pursue a civil rights lawsuit concerning controversial ICE raids in New Haven in 2007.
While seeking a deportation delay for Colala, his attorneys and other immigration advocates also asked ICE to avoid deporting any undocumented immigrant involved in a civil right lawsuit or a labor complaint.
In a letter sent earlier this month to field offices and agents, ICE Director John Morton said that, absent special circumstances, it is "against ICE policy to remove individuals in the midst of a legitimate effort to protect their civil rights or civil liberties."
Colala is both a plaintiff and key witness in the civil rights lawsuit currently pending in federal court in Bridgeport, said his attorney, Michael Wishnie, a Yale Law School professor with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. He said it would have been nearly impossible for Colala to be a part of the suit had he been deported.
Yale lawyers were joined by representatives of immigrants' rights groups, labor unions and faith-based organizations in pushing ICE to adopt the policy. The new policy is similar to ICE rules that discourage the deportation of immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal cases.
"We believe people who have a civil rights claim should be able to meaningfully participate and have their voices heard," said Laura Vazquez, an immigration legislative analyst with the National Council of La Raza in Washington.
Colala was among 32 immigrants detained in ICE raids in New Haven in June 2007. Some advocates thought the raids were retaliation for New Haven adopting a resident identification card system, which was available to undocumented immigrants.
Yale lawyers represented 17 of those detained in federal immigration court and five of the cases have been dismissed because of constitutional problems with how the raids were conducted. Some of the immigrants have since become legal, while other cases remain in court.
Ten of the immigrants, including Colala, filed the civil rights lawsuit.
"They're harming people who really don't do any damage," Colala said through an interpreter. "We're just people who are working hard to support our families."
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-colala-ice-0703-20110702,0,6908726.story
Monday, May 2, 2011
Conn. senator, governor helped student stay in US
The Associated Press
May 2, 2011
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Two years into a fight to stay in the U.S., Mexican college student Mariano Cardoso learned of a victory last week — not from immigration authorities, but from a U.S. senator who had taken up his cause.
On a call to his cell phone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal delivered the news: Homeland Security officials had suspended Cardoso's deportation, allowing him to graduate next month and work in the United States.
"He told me we had a lot to celebrate, but I told him I had to go to class," Cardoso said. "I didn't know what he was talking about."
It was a culmination of the Democratic senator's deep personal involvement in the case. Advocates say the supporting role he played, along with that of Connecticut's Democratic governor, proved critical to winning a reprieve, but also highlights a fractured immigration policy in which decisions can turn on the influence of one's supporters.
The Obama administration is facing growing pressure from Democrats and Latino groups to protect illegal immigrants like Cardoso, 23, a community college student who has lived in the United States since his family took him here as a toddler. Legislation known as the Dream Act would give them a path to legal status as long as they enrolled in college or joined the military, but it has failed several times in Congress, most recently in December. The government does grant exemptions, but advocates say they are handed out erratically.
For Cardoso, the high-level connections resulted from a deliberate public relations strategy.
He had been targeted for deportation since August 2008, when immigration agents discovered his status after intervening in a gathering in his uncle's backyard. With his legal options dwindling, he reached out in February to a student immigrant organization, United We Dream, which coached him on seeking and handling publicity. The first step was a student-organized demonstration at Trinity College, though he said he was reluctant at first.
"I was afraid that agents were going to come out and take me again," Cardoso said.
A petition circulated on his behalf. Reporters began telling his story. Then he met in person with Blumenthal, who reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two weeks ago, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy asked the agency to let Cardoso stay and contribute to the only country he's ever known.
By all accounts, it was the politicians' involvement that made the difference.
"Fortunately you have an engaged member of Congress who was willing to stand up in this case, but what about others who don't have the same kind of access?" said Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the nonprofit American Immigration Council in Washington. "That person is incredibly vulnerable."
In response to questions about apparent inconsistencies, an ICE spokesman said the agency has wide discretion and cases are handled on their merits.
"ICE takes extraordinary steps to ensure that humanitarian concerns and individual circumstances are given top priority among those who come before us as part of the administrative process," Chuck Jackson, a Boston-based spokesman, said in a statement.
Homeland Security officials have said their priority is to deport alien criminals, not college students. But critics say the government needs to do more to make sure that is reflected in its enforcement.
In an April 13 letter to President Barack Obama, 22 mostly Democratic senators asked him to suspend deportations for students who might have been eligible for legal status under the Dream Act — young people brought to the United States as children, who in many cases consider themselves American, speak English and have no ties to or family living in their native countries. If such blanket protection is not possible, the senators suggested streamlining the process for students to seek authorization to stay individually.
Blumenthal's office said it has not heard of a response to the letter. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaby Pacheco, the United We Dream coordinator who coached Cardoso, said her organization also has been lobbying the administration for changes that she says will be critical to Obama's support among Hispanic voters.
"We've gotten to the point that giving a speech or calling for reform is not enough. He is going to have to deliver in order to satisfy the community," said Pacheco, whose group is working with about 17 other students like Cardoso who are facing deportation.
The opposition has come from Republicans and groups such as Americans for Legal Immigration, whose president, William Gheen, said Cardoso should not be taking a college seat that could be going to a student whose family did not break immigration laws.
While several other students in Cardoso's situation have gone public with their stories in hopes of staying, immigration law expert Michael A. Olivas said they could be jeopardizing parents or other relatives who are here illegally. In most cases, he said, their best strategy is to try to stay off the radar of immigration authorities and wait for a change in policy.
"If you have to a go to the press or you have to a get a member of Congress to save one of these kids ... then it's just very inefficient and dangerous and frankly undermining because if just gives more fuel to the nativists," said Olivas, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Cardoso, of New Britain, Conn., said he is concerned for his father, who has helped pay his tuition with landscaping jobs. His younger brother and sister have citizenship because they were born in the United States.
He is due to graduate next month from Capital Community College in Hartford with a liberal arts degree, and he has begun exploring other degree programs since winning the yearlong, renewable stay from the government.
He initially thought he would become a civil engineer or a math teacher. In light of his successful campaign to stay, however, he has begun considering a career in communications.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j458s_6IMstMZVGj9KddQtr3rPtg?docId=217e1fb1f39d47ad974a1ba635c5dd90
May 2, 2011
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Two years into a fight to stay in the U.S., Mexican college student Mariano Cardoso learned of a victory last week — not from immigration authorities, but from a U.S. senator who had taken up his cause.
On a call to his cell phone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal delivered the news: Homeland Security officials had suspended Cardoso's deportation, allowing him to graduate next month and work in the United States.
"He told me we had a lot to celebrate, but I told him I had to go to class," Cardoso said. "I didn't know what he was talking about."
It was a culmination of the Democratic senator's deep personal involvement in the case. Advocates say the supporting role he played, along with that of Connecticut's Democratic governor, proved critical to winning a reprieve, but also highlights a fractured immigration policy in which decisions can turn on the influence of one's supporters.
The Obama administration is facing growing pressure from Democrats and Latino groups to protect illegal immigrants like Cardoso, 23, a community college student who has lived in the United States since his family took him here as a toddler. Legislation known as the Dream Act would give them a path to legal status as long as they enrolled in college or joined the military, but it has failed several times in Congress, most recently in December. The government does grant exemptions, but advocates say they are handed out erratically.
For Cardoso, the high-level connections resulted from a deliberate public relations strategy.
He had been targeted for deportation since August 2008, when immigration agents discovered his status after intervening in a gathering in his uncle's backyard. With his legal options dwindling, he reached out in February to a student immigrant organization, United We Dream, which coached him on seeking and handling publicity. The first step was a student-organized demonstration at Trinity College, though he said he was reluctant at first.
"I was afraid that agents were going to come out and take me again," Cardoso said.
A petition circulated on his behalf. Reporters began telling his story. Then he met in person with Blumenthal, who reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two weeks ago, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy asked the agency to let Cardoso stay and contribute to the only country he's ever known.
By all accounts, it was the politicians' involvement that made the difference.
"Fortunately you have an engaged member of Congress who was willing to stand up in this case, but what about others who don't have the same kind of access?" said Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the nonprofit American Immigration Council in Washington. "That person is incredibly vulnerable."
In response to questions about apparent inconsistencies, an ICE spokesman said the agency has wide discretion and cases are handled on their merits.
"ICE takes extraordinary steps to ensure that humanitarian concerns and individual circumstances are given top priority among those who come before us as part of the administrative process," Chuck Jackson, a Boston-based spokesman, said in a statement.
Homeland Security officials have said their priority is to deport alien criminals, not college students. But critics say the government needs to do more to make sure that is reflected in its enforcement.
In an April 13 letter to President Barack Obama, 22 mostly Democratic senators asked him to suspend deportations for students who might have been eligible for legal status under the Dream Act — young people brought to the United States as children, who in many cases consider themselves American, speak English and have no ties to or family living in their native countries. If such blanket protection is not possible, the senators suggested streamlining the process for students to seek authorization to stay individually.
Blumenthal's office said it has not heard of a response to the letter. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaby Pacheco, the United We Dream coordinator who coached Cardoso, said her organization also has been lobbying the administration for changes that she says will be critical to Obama's support among Hispanic voters.
"We've gotten to the point that giving a speech or calling for reform is not enough. He is going to have to deliver in order to satisfy the community," said Pacheco, whose group is working with about 17 other students like Cardoso who are facing deportation.
The opposition has come from Republicans and groups such as Americans for Legal Immigration, whose president, William Gheen, said Cardoso should not be taking a college seat that could be going to a student whose family did not break immigration laws.
While several other students in Cardoso's situation have gone public with their stories in hopes of staying, immigration law expert Michael A. Olivas said they could be jeopardizing parents or other relatives who are here illegally. In most cases, he said, their best strategy is to try to stay off the radar of immigration authorities and wait for a change in policy.
"If you have to a go to the press or you have to a get a member of Congress to save one of these kids ... then it's just very inefficient and dangerous and frankly undermining because if just gives more fuel to the nativists," said Olivas, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Cardoso, of New Britain, Conn., said he is concerned for his father, who has helped pay his tuition with landscaping jobs. His younger brother and sister have citizenship because they were born in the United States.
He is due to graduate next month from Capital Community College in Hartford with a liberal arts degree, and he has begun exploring other degree programs since winning the yearlong, renewable stay from the government.
He initially thought he would become a civil engineer or a math teacher. In light of his successful campaign to stay, however, he has begun considering a career in communications.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j458s_6IMstMZVGj9KddQtr3rPtg?docId=217e1fb1f39d47ad974a1ba635c5dd90
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Mariano Cardoso to Speak on Deportation Panel; Mariano Cardoso can renew his stay every year
By LeAnne Gendreau
NBC Connecticut
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2011
Just hours after learning that he will be able to stay in the United States, at least for another year, a Mexican-born American man will participate in a panel on deportation.
Central Connecticut State University is screening "Tony and Janina's American Wedding: A Deportation Love Story" on Wednesday night and Mariano Cardoso will be one of the speakers during a panel discussion.
Cardoso, a 22-year-old student at Capitol Community College, was brought to the United States when he was 22 months old and has been living in New Britain.
In 2008, Cardoso was unable to show federal authorities who had turned up at a family picnic that he was a citizen. To become a citizen, before he was busted, he would have had to go to Mexico and apply for a U.S. visa.
He was in danger of being deported, but learned on Tuesday that he will be able to stay in the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a temporary stay of removal, which is renewable each year.
Cardoso has been taking classes for the last five years, paying his tuition without student loans. This is his last semester and then he wants to become a civil engineer or a math teacher.
Another panelist is Ruth Leitman, who created the documentary being screened.
The panel will discuss the patchwork of state and federal laws and policies that have led to 400,000 detentions annually, 360,000 deportations, polarizing legislative prescriptions at the state level and a simmering debate in Congress over what to do about immigration when the whole world appears to be on the move.
The screening of a short version of the film will begin at 4:30 p.m.
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/the-scene/events/Mariano-Cardoso-to-Speak-on-Deportation-Panel-120800909.html
NBC Connecticut
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2011
Just hours after learning that he will be able to stay in the United States, at least for another year, a Mexican-born American man will participate in a panel on deportation.
Central Connecticut State University is screening "Tony and Janina's American Wedding: A Deportation Love Story" on Wednesday night and Mariano Cardoso will be one of the speakers during a panel discussion.
Cardoso, a 22-year-old student at Capitol Community College, was brought to the United States when he was 22 months old and has been living in New Britain.
In 2008, Cardoso was unable to show federal authorities who had turned up at a family picnic that he was a citizen. To become a citizen, before he was busted, he would have had to go to Mexico and apply for a U.S. visa.
He was in danger of being deported, but learned on Tuesday that he will be able to stay in the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a temporary stay of removal, which is renewable each year.
Cardoso has been taking classes for the last five years, paying his tuition without student loans. This is his last semester and then he wants to become a civil engineer or a math teacher.
Another panelist is Ruth Leitman, who created the documentary being screened.
The panel will discuss the patchwork of state and federal laws and policies that have led to 400,000 detentions annually, 360,000 deportations, polarizing legislative prescriptions at the state level and a simmering debate in Congress over what to do about immigration when the whole world appears to be on the move.
The screening of a short version of the film will begin at 4:30 p.m.
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/the-scene/events/Mariano-Cardoso-to-Speak-on-Deportation-Panel-120800909.html
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
College Student With A Dream Fights Deportation
Goes Public With Story Of Coming To U.S. As A Toddler And Growing Up As An American
By MARK SPENCER
The Hartford Courant
March 07, 2011
HARTFORD — Not so long ago, Mariano Cardoso Jr. felt alone and beyond help as he faced being forced to leave the country where he grew up, deported to Mexico as an undocumented immigrant.
The 22-year-old Capital Community College student saw his dream of becoming a math professor or civil engineer evaporating.
Brought to the U.S. when he was 22 months old — first to the Bronx, then to New Britain — he learned early to live in the shadows.
"I was always the shy one, the quiet one," Cardoso said. "I was raised to be cautious, to not attract any sort of attention."
But in 2008 he was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and he's been fighting deportation ever since. Ordered deported after a hearing last year, he got a letter last month from immigration officials informing him that his appeal had been denied.
With his only chance of staying legally in the country the longest of long shots, he decided to do the exact opposite of what came naturally.
He went public.
Cardoso has overcome his fear and shyness and now shares his story with anyone who will listen. He explains that it was not his decision to come to the U.S. illegally. He says he feels as American as anyone else who grew up here, except for having the piece of paper that makes it official. A good student, he talks about what he can contribute to his community.
"It's just not fair," Cardoso said. "It just doesn't seem reasonable for me to be kicked out of my home. I'm not a criminal. I'm not a monster."
His case quickly drew community support.
The Trinity College student group Stop the Raids has demonstrated on his behalf in front of the Abraham Ribicoff Federal Building on Main Street. Another rally is planned for noon on March 12 in Room 206 at Capital. Teachers and staff at the school advocate for him on their own time to avoid any conflict as state employees.
About 650 people have signed a Facebook petition asking that Cardoso be allowed to stay.
One day last week, when he was in the seventh-floor library at Capital, a student approached him who had never met him, but had heard about him during a classroom discussion about immigration.
"I wish you well on your journey and completing college here in the U.S.," Denise Zuniga, of Hartford, told him. "It's something that hits home."
With a shy smile, Cardoso thanked her and asked her to sign his Facebook petition.
"I feel I have the support of my peers and I'm not running in the dark by myself," he said.
For Cardoso, the darkness descended on an August afternoon in 2008 while he was spending time with his family in his uncle's backyard. Five immigration agents and a New Britain police officer came into the yard, holding a photo of a woman they were looking for who they said was a drug dealer.
The officers wanted to search the house and got annoyed when his uncle refused because they didn't have a warrant, he said. The men and the women were separated and the officers ordered Cardoso, his uncle and cousins onto their knees while they looked over their documents.
Cardoso thought it was all a misunderstanding until he and two relatives were handcuffed and put in a squad car. He ended up in a detention center in Rhode Island for two weeks before his family posted a $5,000 bond to get him out. He finally got a hearing in Hartford immigration court in February 2010, but was ordered deported. He received the letter Feb. 7 denying his appeal.
He could file another appeal but his lawyer, Anthony Collins of Wethersfield, has advised against it, saying it would be expensive and he has no chance of winning.
"There's really no remedy available to him and that's what's so awful," Collins said.
Although illegal immigration is a controversial issue, young people in Cardoso's situation have perhaps attracted the broadest sympathy. The long debated DREAM Act would give them a chance to become legal. In its latest version, the DREAM Act applies to young people who were brought to the U.S. when they were 15 years old or younger, have lived here for at least five years and graduated from an American high school, among other conditions. They would be given "conditional status," allowing them to remain legally in the country.
After 10 years, those who complete two years of college or serve in the armed forces for two years, stay out of trouble and pay back taxes can apply to be legal permanent residents, the first step to citizenship.
Backed by the Obama administration, the act passed the House of Representatives in December but was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Barring immigration reform, Cardoso's only chance is to get a U.S. senator to introduce what's called a private bill, identifying him as someone who should be allowed to stay in the country.
Gaby Pacheco, of United We Dream, a national organization that advocates for undocumented students, said she knows of only three or four private bills that have been introduced in the last five years. Former Sen. Christopher Dodd introduced one in 2007 for two brothers, born in Colombia and raised in Florida.
During campaigns for the DREAM Act, and especially last year, students across the country stated publicly that they were undocumented. Some allowed themselves to get arrested at sit-ins, exposing themselves to potential deportation.
"These young people have lived their whole lives here," Pacheco said. "Unfortunately, because of a broken immigration system, they fall into a limbo."
There's no way to know when Cardoso could be deported. With an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, officials focus on deporting those with criminal convictions for drugs or violent crimes. They could show up at his door in days, months, or years from now.
"It's just a ticking bomb and no one knows when it will go off," Pacheco said.
Cardoso says he now knows he is not alone and is determined to do what he can to bring reforms. There is too much at stake, he said, to do nothing.
"Everybody I know is here," he said. "Everything I hope to become is here."
http://articles.courant.com/2011-03-07/news/hc-hartford-cardoso-0307-20110306_1_immigration-agents-community-support-student
By MARK SPENCER
The Hartford Courant
March 07, 2011
HARTFORD — Not so long ago, Mariano Cardoso Jr. felt alone and beyond help as he faced being forced to leave the country where he grew up, deported to Mexico as an undocumented immigrant.
The 22-year-old Capital Community College student saw his dream of becoming a math professor or civil engineer evaporating.
Brought to the U.S. when he was 22 months old — first to the Bronx, then to New Britain — he learned early to live in the shadows.
"I was always the shy one, the quiet one," Cardoso said. "I was raised to be cautious, to not attract any sort of attention."
But in 2008 he was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and he's been fighting deportation ever since. Ordered deported after a hearing last year, he got a letter last month from immigration officials informing him that his appeal had been denied.
With his only chance of staying legally in the country the longest of long shots, he decided to do the exact opposite of what came naturally.
He went public.
Cardoso has overcome his fear and shyness and now shares his story with anyone who will listen. He explains that it was not his decision to come to the U.S. illegally. He says he feels as American as anyone else who grew up here, except for having the piece of paper that makes it official. A good student, he talks about what he can contribute to his community.
"It's just not fair," Cardoso said. "It just doesn't seem reasonable for me to be kicked out of my home. I'm not a criminal. I'm not a monster."
His case quickly drew community support.
The Trinity College student group Stop the Raids has demonstrated on his behalf in front of the Abraham Ribicoff Federal Building on Main Street. Another rally is planned for noon on March 12 in Room 206 at Capital. Teachers and staff at the school advocate for him on their own time to avoid any conflict as state employees.
About 650 people have signed a Facebook petition asking that Cardoso be allowed to stay.
One day last week, when he was in the seventh-floor library at Capital, a student approached him who had never met him, but had heard about him during a classroom discussion about immigration.
"I wish you well on your journey and completing college here in the U.S.," Denise Zuniga, of Hartford, told him. "It's something that hits home."
With a shy smile, Cardoso thanked her and asked her to sign his Facebook petition.
"I feel I have the support of my peers and I'm not running in the dark by myself," he said.
For Cardoso, the darkness descended on an August afternoon in 2008 while he was spending time with his family in his uncle's backyard. Five immigration agents and a New Britain police officer came into the yard, holding a photo of a woman they were looking for who they said was a drug dealer.
The officers wanted to search the house and got annoyed when his uncle refused because they didn't have a warrant, he said. The men and the women were separated and the officers ordered Cardoso, his uncle and cousins onto their knees while they looked over their documents.
Cardoso thought it was all a misunderstanding until he and two relatives were handcuffed and put in a squad car. He ended up in a detention center in Rhode Island for two weeks before his family posted a $5,000 bond to get him out. He finally got a hearing in Hartford immigration court in February 2010, but was ordered deported. He received the letter Feb. 7 denying his appeal.
He could file another appeal but his lawyer, Anthony Collins of Wethersfield, has advised against it, saying it would be expensive and he has no chance of winning.
"There's really no remedy available to him and that's what's so awful," Collins said.
Although illegal immigration is a controversial issue, young people in Cardoso's situation have perhaps attracted the broadest sympathy. The long debated DREAM Act would give them a chance to become legal. In its latest version, the DREAM Act applies to young people who were brought to the U.S. when they were 15 years old or younger, have lived here for at least five years and graduated from an American high school, among other conditions. They would be given "conditional status," allowing them to remain legally in the country.
After 10 years, those who complete two years of college or serve in the armed forces for two years, stay out of trouble and pay back taxes can apply to be legal permanent residents, the first step to citizenship.
Backed by the Obama administration, the act passed the House of Representatives in December but was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Barring immigration reform, Cardoso's only chance is to get a U.S. senator to introduce what's called a private bill, identifying him as someone who should be allowed to stay in the country.
Gaby Pacheco, of United We Dream, a national organization that advocates for undocumented students, said she knows of only three or four private bills that have been introduced in the last five years. Former Sen. Christopher Dodd introduced one in 2007 for two brothers, born in Colombia and raised in Florida.
During campaigns for the DREAM Act, and especially last year, students across the country stated publicly that they were undocumented. Some allowed themselves to get arrested at sit-ins, exposing themselves to potential deportation.
"These young people have lived their whole lives here," Pacheco said. "Unfortunately, because of a broken immigration system, they fall into a limbo."
There's no way to know when Cardoso could be deported. With an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, officials focus on deporting those with criminal convictions for drugs or violent crimes. They could show up at his door in days, months, or years from now.
"It's just a ticking bomb and no one knows when it will go off," Pacheco said.
Cardoso says he now knows he is not alone and is determined to do what he can to bring reforms. There is too much at stake, he said, to do nothing.
"Everybody I know is here," he said. "Everything I hope to become is here."
http://articles.courant.com/2011-03-07/news/hc-hartford-cardoso-0307-20110306_1_immigration-agents-community-support-student
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Trinity Student Organization Protests Possible Deportations
By Allison Pickens
The Trinity Tripod
2/22/11
Trinity students have joined together with Mariano Cardoso Jr., an engineering student at Capitol Community College in New Haven, Conn. who faces deportation only four months prior to his graduation date. Born in Mexico, Cardoso came to the United States 20 years ago with his father, both of whom live in Connecticut illegally. Cardoso and his father received a letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency demanding their deportation, and Cardoso fears they will be separated from his two American-born siblings.
On Monday, Feb. 14 more than 20 Trinity College students from the student group Stop the Raids protested Cardoso's deportation at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office in Hartford.
Stop the Raids is a student-run group at Trinity "whose mission is to support the immigrant population locally and nation-wide," according to the group's Facebook page. The group "also works in solidarity with other organizations to spread awareness of the mal-treatment of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants alike in the hopes of creating an immigrant support base that will prevent further illegal actions against immigrants in this country."
At the Cardoso rally, members of Stop the Raids marched to chants of "Yes Education, No Deportation." They also formed a picket line and made various speeches on immigration reform and immigrant rights.
Acting Executive Director of the Latino and Affairs Commission Werner Oyanadel promoted an upcoming public hearing regarding immigrant college tuition fees in March. Other attendees spoke against Cardoso's deportation and in favor of immigration rights, including Mayoral candidate for Hartford Edwin Vargas, who denounced President Obama for not doing enough for immigrants, Hartford City Council Minority Leader and Working Families Party Member, and People of the Faith leader Frank O'Gorman.
The protesters called for presidential pardons for illegal immigrants and increased awareness of immigrant issues during the hour-long rally.
The Trinity College Stop the Raids group is currently working with legal channels to keep Cardoso in the United States until he graduates college.
Earlier this month, 4Legs published an article by Vice President of Stop the Raids Theresa Meehan '11 detailing Cardoso's situation and the current immigration laws in the U.S. In her article, Meehan criticized anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. "These laws show the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiments," she wrote. "They have lead to an increase in racial profiling and have broken away from the original intent of the laws: to deport illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes. These laws enforce the view of a black and white world: immigrants without documents should be deported, no special cases, no maybes, no gray areas." To read Meehan's article in its entirety visit 4Legs.org
http://media.www.trinitytripod.com/media/storage/paper520/news/2011/02/22/News/Trinity.Student.Organization.Protests.Possible.Deportations-3979462.shtml
The Trinity Tripod
2/22/11
Trinity students have joined together with Mariano Cardoso Jr., an engineering student at Capitol Community College in New Haven, Conn. who faces deportation only four months prior to his graduation date. Born in Mexico, Cardoso came to the United States 20 years ago with his father, both of whom live in Connecticut illegally. Cardoso and his father received a letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency demanding their deportation, and Cardoso fears they will be separated from his two American-born siblings.
On Monday, Feb. 14 more than 20 Trinity College students from the student group Stop the Raids protested Cardoso's deportation at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office in Hartford.
Stop the Raids is a student-run group at Trinity "whose mission is to support the immigrant population locally and nation-wide," according to the group's Facebook page. The group "also works in solidarity with other organizations to spread awareness of the mal-treatment of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants alike in the hopes of creating an immigrant support base that will prevent further illegal actions against immigrants in this country."
At the Cardoso rally, members of Stop the Raids marched to chants of "Yes Education, No Deportation." They also formed a picket line and made various speeches on immigration reform and immigrant rights.
Acting Executive Director of the Latino and Affairs Commission Werner Oyanadel promoted an upcoming public hearing regarding immigrant college tuition fees in March. Other attendees spoke against Cardoso's deportation and in favor of immigration rights, including Mayoral candidate for Hartford Edwin Vargas, who denounced President Obama for not doing enough for immigrants, Hartford City Council Minority Leader and Working Families Party Member, and People of the Faith leader Frank O'Gorman.
The protesters called for presidential pardons for illegal immigrants and increased awareness of immigrant issues during the hour-long rally.
The Trinity College Stop the Raids group is currently working with legal channels to keep Cardoso in the United States until he graduates college.
Earlier this month, 4Legs published an article by Vice President of Stop the Raids Theresa Meehan '11 detailing Cardoso's situation and the current immigration laws in the U.S. In her article, Meehan criticized anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. "These laws show the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiments," she wrote. "They have lead to an increase in racial profiling and have broken away from the original intent of the laws: to deport illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes. These laws enforce the view of a black and white world: immigrants without documents should be deported, no special cases, no maybes, no gray areas." To read Meehan's article in its entirety visit 4Legs.org
http://media.www.trinitytripod.com/media/storage/paper520/news/2011/02/22/News/Trinity.Student.Organization.Protests.Possible.Deportations-3979462.shtml
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
A Case Involving the Exploitation of Undocumented Workers in New Haven Draws Attention to the State's Restaurants
By Gregory B. Hladky
The Hartford Advocate
February 07, 2011
A family of Ecuadorian immigrants is rescued from what they claim was virtual servitude at a New Haven bakery. The owner of Mexican restaurants in Southbury and Prospect pleads guilty to hiring undocumented workers as cooks. A multimillion-dollar chain of Dunkin’ Donut shops along the shoreline is sold after its founder goes to prison for recruiting illegal foreign employees.
According to labor lawyers and immigrant-rights activists, Connecticut’s restaurant and food service industry routinely hires undocumented immigrant workers to wash dishes, clean floors, cook, bake and wait tables. The jobs often involve low pay, long hours and tough working conditions.
And if these workers complain or ask for more money or decent benefits, they can find themselves booted out the door or threatened with deportation as “illegal aliens,” says Sheila Hayre, a lawyer with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association.
“I am shocked at how common it is, how rampant it is,” Hayre says.
Peter Goselin, a Hartford labor lawyer, agrees. “There’s no question that undocumented immigrants are working in many Connecticut restaurants,” he says. “It’s a pretty common feature of the restaurant business in Connecticut.”
We’re not talking just about low-rent pizza places and hamburger joints. “Most nice restaurants in Connecticut have undocumented workers doing crappy jobs,” Goselin says.
This winter, employees of two upscale New Haven restaurants (Cafe Goodfellas and Downtown at the Taft) staged demonstrations to protest unfair wages. John Lugo, an activist who helped organize the protests, says several of those involved are undocumented workers.
“The employers are claiming they didn’t know they were undocumented workers,” says Goselin, who is representing some of those employees.
Gennaro Iannacone, owner of Goodfellas, declined to comment. The owners of Downtown at the Taft, who are apparently planning to reopen the restaurant under a new name, couldn’t be reached for comment.
“They know from the beginning these workers were undocumented,” says Lugo, who is with the advocacy group Unidad Latina en Accion. “But when you ask for these people’s rights, [the owners] say, ‘They are illegal, I don’t have to pay them.’“
The lack of a consistent and comprehensive federal policy on people who enter the United States without the required visas or work permits has become a seemingly insoluble political nightmare for the White House, Congress, federal, state and local officials. Despite President Barack Obama’s promises to change the course of federal immigration policy, deportations have actually increased since his administration took office two years ago.
A new report by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. last year at 11.2 million, about the same as in 2009. The nonpartisan research group’s study also found that the number of undocumented employees in the American workforce also remained steady at about 8 million despite the recession, high unemployment and state crackdowns.
Connecticut’s illegal-immigration issues are mild compared to states like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The Pew report estimated Connecticut was home to about 120,000 undocumented immigrants in 2010; but that represents a big increase from the approximately 75,000 illegal immigrants who were believed to be here a decade ago.
Their presence has produced its share of controversy here, from New Haven’s 2007 decision to offer city identification cards to undocumented immigrants to the Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton’s proposals to use state and local police to cooperate with federal agents in rounding up undocumented immigrants. Raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents several years ago sparked angry protests in some cities.
Most of the undocumented immigrants in Connecticut are here for the work, whether it’s in construction or landscaping or any of the other businesses willing to hire them. Experts food service is one area where they find low-wage jobs most available, and where they often find themselves exploited. “The vast majority of them work in the food industry,” says Hayre.
Goselin says their situations cover a broad spectrum, from horrific conditions that may even include sexual abuse, to employers who treat undocumented workers just as they treat American-born employees.
The plight of those six Ecuadorians who were working at Rocco’s Bakery on Ferry Street in New Haven is an example of how bad things can get, according to Hayre.
The bakery’s owner, Antonio DiBenedetto of North Branford, pleaded guilty last month to one count of unlawful employment of aliens and now faces a potential fine of up to $250,000 and up to five years in prison. His lawyer, Hugh F. Keefe, insists that DiBenedetto was only trying to help these immigrants by providing them with work and a place to live.
The Ecuadorians have filed a civil suit accusing DiBenedetto and his two sons of sexual and verbal abuse of the women in the family, of threatening them with deportation if they complained about long hours and unfairly low pay. “They were terrified,” Hayre says. “It was just terrible treatment.”
Hayre says this case is unusual because the immigrants involved decided to seek help from local activists, lawyers and federal officials. “Very, very few ever come forward,” she says, explaining most undocumented immigrants fear that if they make an official complaint about an employer violating state and federal labor laws, they will be deported no matter what happens to the employer.
In the Rocco Bakery case, ICE has granted several members of the Ecuadorian family temporary work permits that will allow them to stay in U.S., at least for now.
Lugo acknowledges that not all restaurants hiring undocumented workers are trying to exploit them. “I know some owners who are pretty decent,” he says.
Treating undocumented immigrants decently won’t protect an employer if the feds decide to make an example of him, says Diane Polan, an immigration lawyer. She represented Andrew Adames, an Oxford resident who was prosecuted in 2009 for hiring illegal workers at his chain of Mexican restaurants. She insists Adames never abused his employees, paid them fairly and treated them well.
Polan believes ICE agents went after Adames to make him “the Connecticut poster boy for the federal government’s ... misguided strategy” for solving the problem of undocumented workers. She says the idea was, “If you go and prosecute restaurants, that will solve the problem.”
“How does that help the problem,” Polan asks, “making my client into a convicted felon?” Adames pleaded guilty, paid ICE $150,000, and was given 150 hours of community service.
People in Connecticut’s restaurant and food service industry insist that hiring undocumented workers just isn’t a big deal in this state. Several of the experts attending a recent Farm-To-Chef Annual Meeting in Old Saybrook last month claimed they’d never encountered illegal workers at restaurants where they’d been employed.
John Turenne, a former chef at Yale University who is now with Sustainable Food Systems, says larger food service institutions and companies won’t employ undocumented workers because of the potential for legal problems. “I think they’re out there in smaller businesses,” he argues. “If there was a crackdown, it’s the little guy who would be in trouble.”
Hayre believes it’s far more widespread. She recalls a time a few years ago when a rumor was spread that ICE agents were planning to raid lots of restaurants in New Haven. Hayre and some friends happened to be going out to dinner that night, and at two of the city’s top restaurants, they were told the kitchens had been shut down. Virtually everyone had fled in fear.
“It really brought home for me how hidden these workers are,” she says, “and how totally dependent we are on them.”
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/featured-news/a-case-involving-the-exploitation-of-undocumented-workers-in-new-haven-draws-attention-to-the-states-restaurants-058472
The Hartford Advocate
February 07, 2011
A family of Ecuadorian immigrants is rescued from what they claim was virtual servitude at a New Haven bakery. The owner of Mexican restaurants in Southbury and Prospect pleads guilty to hiring undocumented workers as cooks. A multimillion-dollar chain of Dunkin’ Donut shops along the shoreline is sold after its founder goes to prison for recruiting illegal foreign employees.
According to labor lawyers and immigrant-rights activists, Connecticut’s restaurant and food service industry routinely hires undocumented immigrant workers to wash dishes, clean floors, cook, bake and wait tables. The jobs often involve low pay, long hours and tough working conditions.
And if these workers complain or ask for more money or decent benefits, they can find themselves booted out the door or threatened with deportation as “illegal aliens,” says Sheila Hayre, a lawyer with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association.
“I am shocked at how common it is, how rampant it is,” Hayre says.
Peter Goselin, a Hartford labor lawyer, agrees. “There’s no question that undocumented immigrants are working in many Connecticut restaurants,” he says. “It’s a pretty common feature of the restaurant business in Connecticut.”
We’re not talking just about low-rent pizza places and hamburger joints. “Most nice restaurants in Connecticut have undocumented workers doing crappy jobs,” Goselin says.
This winter, employees of two upscale New Haven restaurants (Cafe Goodfellas and Downtown at the Taft) staged demonstrations to protest unfair wages. John Lugo, an activist who helped organize the protests, says several of those involved are undocumented workers.
“The employers are claiming they didn’t know they were undocumented workers,” says Goselin, who is representing some of those employees.
Gennaro Iannacone, owner of Goodfellas, declined to comment. The owners of Downtown at the Taft, who are apparently planning to reopen the restaurant under a new name, couldn’t be reached for comment.
“They know from the beginning these workers were undocumented,” says Lugo, who is with the advocacy group Unidad Latina en Accion. “But when you ask for these people’s rights, [the owners] say, ‘They are illegal, I don’t have to pay them.’“
The lack of a consistent and comprehensive federal policy on people who enter the United States without the required visas or work permits has become a seemingly insoluble political nightmare for the White House, Congress, federal, state and local officials. Despite President Barack Obama’s promises to change the course of federal immigration policy, deportations have actually increased since his administration took office two years ago.
A new report by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. last year at 11.2 million, about the same as in 2009. The nonpartisan research group’s study also found that the number of undocumented employees in the American workforce also remained steady at about 8 million despite the recession, high unemployment and state crackdowns.
Connecticut’s illegal-immigration issues are mild compared to states like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The Pew report estimated Connecticut was home to about 120,000 undocumented immigrants in 2010; but that represents a big increase from the approximately 75,000 illegal immigrants who were believed to be here a decade ago.
Their presence has produced its share of controversy here, from New Haven’s 2007 decision to offer city identification cards to undocumented immigrants to the Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton’s proposals to use state and local police to cooperate with federal agents in rounding up undocumented immigrants. Raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents several years ago sparked angry protests in some cities.
Most of the undocumented immigrants in Connecticut are here for the work, whether it’s in construction or landscaping or any of the other businesses willing to hire them. Experts food service is one area where they find low-wage jobs most available, and where they often find themselves exploited. “The vast majority of them work in the food industry,” says Hayre.
Goselin says their situations cover a broad spectrum, from horrific conditions that may even include sexual abuse, to employers who treat undocumented workers just as they treat American-born employees.
The plight of those six Ecuadorians who were working at Rocco’s Bakery on Ferry Street in New Haven is an example of how bad things can get, according to Hayre.
The bakery’s owner, Antonio DiBenedetto of North Branford, pleaded guilty last month to one count of unlawful employment of aliens and now faces a potential fine of up to $250,000 and up to five years in prison. His lawyer, Hugh F. Keefe, insists that DiBenedetto was only trying to help these immigrants by providing them with work and a place to live.
The Ecuadorians have filed a civil suit accusing DiBenedetto and his two sons of sexual and verbal abuse of the women in the family, of threatening them with deportation if they complained about long hours and unfairly low pay. “They were terrified,” Hayre says. “It was just terrible treatment.”
Hayre says this case is unusual because the immigrants involved decided to seek help from local activists, lawyers and federal officials. “Very, very few ever come forward,” she says, explaining most undocumented immigrants fear that if they make an official complaint about an employer violating state and federal labor laws, they will be deported no matter what happens to the employer.
In the Rocco Bakery case, ICE has granted several members of the Ecuadorian family temporary work permits that will allow them to stay in U.S., at least for now.
Lugo acknowledges that not all restaurants hiring undocumented workers are trying to exploit them. “I know some owners who are pretty decent,” he says.
Treating undocumented immigrants decently won’t protect an employer if the feds decide to make an example of him, says Diane Polan, an immigration lawyer. She represented Andrew Adames, an Oxford resident who was prosecuted in 2009 for hiring illegal workers at his chain of Mexican restaurants. She insists Adames never abused his employees, paid them fairly and treated them well.
Polan believes ICE agents went after Adames to make him “the Connecticut poster boy for the federal government’s ... misguided strategy” for solving the problem of undocumented workers. She says the idea was, “If you go and prosecute restaurants, that will solve the problem.”
“How does that help the problem,” Polan asks, “making my client into a convicted felon?” Adames pleaded guilty, paid ICE $150,000, and was given 150 hours of community service.
People in Connecticut’s restaurant and food service industry insist that hiring undocumented workers just isn’t a big deal in this state. Several of the experts attending a recent Farm-To-Chef Annual Meeting in Old Saybrook last month claimed they’d never encountered illegal workers at restaurants where they’d been employed.
John Turenne, a former chef at Yale University who is now with Sustainable Food Systems, says larger food service institutions and companies won’t employ undocumented workers because of the potential for legal problems. “I think they’re out there in smaller businesses,” he argues. “If there was a crackdown, it’s the little guy who would be in trouble.”
Hayre believes it’s far more widespread. She recalls a time a few years ago when a rumor was spread that ICE agents were planning to raid lots of restaurants in New Haven. Hayre and some friends happened to be going out to dinner that night, and at two of the city’s top restaurants, they were told the kitchens had been shut down. Virtually everyone had fled in fear.
“It really brought home for me how hidden these workers are,” she says, “and how totally dependent we are on them.”
http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/featured-news/a-case-involving-the-exploitation-of-undocumented-workers-in-new-haven-draws-attention-to-the-states-restaurants-058472
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
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.
Similar Articles
* Hearing Postponed in New Haven 30 Case
* Framed for Murder?
* Free, Free At Last?
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
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.
Similar Articles
* Hearing Postponed in New Haven 30 Case
* Framed for Murder?
* Free, Free At Last?
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
Friday, December 3, 2010
ICE to deport one from the 2007 Fair Haven raids
By Betsy Yagla
New Haven Advocate
December 01, 2010
One of the “New Haven 30” who were swept up in the controversial 2007 Fair Haven immigration raids is facing imminent deportation.
ICE (Immigration, Custom and Enforcement) is attempting to deport Washington Colala by Monday, Dec. 6. He’s already bought his plane ticket.
That’s a problem, says Yale Law student Mark Padulla, because Colala is one of 11 plaintiffs who’ve filed suit against ICE claiming that the feds violated their civil rights in the raids.
“They’re trying to rush him while his claims are still pending,” says Padulla. In addition to his own claims, Colala was a witness for his roommate. And a federal judge deemed Colala’s witness testimony to be credible; the judge dismissed the immigration charges against Colala’s roommate.
Colala has no criminal history, but does have two U.S.-born children, including a 10-year-old daughter who lives in the area.
Colala is from Ecuador and has been working in the U.S. for 15 years. He’s been fighting his deportation in immigration court. He lost the case and appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, the second circuit denied his appeal.
The raids happened the day after New Haven aldermen voted to move forward with the city’s innovative residency card, an ID program available to all city residents regardless of citizenship status. It’s widely believed that the immigration raids happened in direct response to the program.
Local immigrant rights groups have been fighting on behalf of the men and as part of a records request found emails between the federal Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s office (located next to City Hall) showing that the USAO wanted to send a message to New Haven.
For its part, ICE has said that the raids were pre-planned and had nothing to do with the ID card program.
Of the 30 picked up in the raids, 11 have filed a civil rights case against ICE, claiming, for instance, that agents did not identify themselves and forced their way into homes in the wee hours of the morning on June 7, 2007.
Colala is the only one of the 11 facing deportation. The other 10 raised constitutional issues in their immigration cases and five won because a judge concluded that ICE agents committed Fourth Amendment violations during the raids. The remaining five lost and are appealing those decisions.
If Colala is deported on Monday he will not be able to participate in the civil rights case. He is a key witness in the case.
Colala is one of several people found on the street, and presumably because of his skin tone and lack of English skills, was assumed to be an undocumented immigrant. According to court papers, here’s his version of what happened that June 2007 day:
Colala left his home to walk to work but returned home to pick up something. At his building, officers approached him and asked if he lived there. They also asked for his ID. His ID was inside, he said. Then he was handcuffed and forced inside and upstairs to his apartment. At the apartment’s landing, officers drew guns and demanded he open the locked door. Without a search warrant or consent, officers entered the apartment.
According to a 2007 interview with the Advocate, one of Colala’s roommates was in the shower when ICE agents entered the home. He was handcuffed when he exited the shower and found Colala handcuffed and sitting on the living room floor.
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/drive-by-media/ice-to-deport-one-from-the-2007-fair-haven-raids-035619
New Haven Advocate
December 01, 2010
One of the “New Haven 30” who were swept up in the controversial 2007 Fair Haven immigration raids is facing imminent deportation.
ICE (Immigration, Custom and Enforcement) is attempting to deport Washington Colala by Monday, Dec. 6. He’s already bought his plane ticket.
That’s a problem, says Yale Law student Mark Padulla, because Colala is one of 11 plaintiffs who’ve filed suit against ICE claiming that the feds violated their civil rights in the raids.
“They’re trying to rush him while his claims are still pending,” says Padulla. In addition to his own claims, Colala was a witness for his roommate. And a federal judge deemed Colala’s witness testimony to be credible; the judge dismissed the immigration charges against Colala’s roommate.
Colala has no criminal history, but does have two U.S.-born children, including a 10-year-old daughter who lives in the area.
Colala is from Ecuador and has been working in the U.S. for 15 years. He’s been fighting his deportation in immigration court. He lost the case and appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, the second circuit denied his appeal.
The raids happened the day after New Haven aldermen voted to move forward with the city’s innovative residency card, an ID program available to all city residents regardless of citizenship status. It’s widely believed that the immigration raids happened in direct response to the program.
Local immigrant rights groups have been fighting on behalf of the men and as part of a records request found emails between the federal Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s office (located next to City Hall) showing that the USAO wanted to send a message to New Haven.
For its part, ICE has said that the raids were pre-planned and had nothing to do with the ID card program.
Of the 30 picked up in the raids, 11 have filed a civil rights case against ICE, claiming, for instance, that agents did not identify themselves and forced their way into homes in the wee hours of the morning on June 7, 2007.
Colala is the only one of the 11 facing deportation. The other 10 raised constitutional issues in their immigration cases and five won because a judge concluded that ICE agents committed Fourth Amendment violations during the raids. The remaining five lost and are appealing those decisions.
If Colala is deported on Monday he will not be able to participate in the civil rights case. He is a key witness in the case.
Colala is one of several people found on the street, and presumably because of his skin tone and lack of English skills, was assumed to be an undocumented immigrant. According to court papers, here’s his version of what happened that June 2007 day:
Colala left his home to walk to work but returned home to pick up something. At his building, officers approached him and asked if he lived there. They also asked for his ID. His ID was inside, he said. Then he was handcuffed and forced inside and upstairs to his apartment. At the apartment’s landing, officers drew guns and demanded he open the locked door. Without a search warrant or consent, officers entered the apartment.
According to a 2007 interview with the Advocate, one of Colala’s roommates was in the shower when ICE agents entered the home. He was handcuffed when he exited the shower and found Colala handcuffed and sitting on the living room floor.
http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/drive-by-media/ice-to-deport-one-from-the-2007-fair-haven-raids-035619
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Anxiety remains a year after Danbury signs ICE agreement
Robert Miller, Staff Writer
NewsTimes.Com
September 20, 2010
DANBURY -- Nilton Coelho owns Banana Brazil, a luncheonette on Main Street in downtown Danbury. As the name suggests, he serves Brazilian food.
The problem is, there aren't as many Brazilians in the city as there used to be, which means there aren't as many orders for plantains and sausage.
"My business has gone down,'' Coelho said recently.
As a result, he's spending more money on advertising to bring more Hispanics and more whites through the door. The strategy has worked, Coelho said, and that's helped him make up for the decline in Brazilian business.
But there is also the impact of 287(g) -- the federal statute that has become the informal name of the Danbury Police Department's formal affiliation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The memorandum of agreement between ICE and the city of Danbury was adopted in September 2009.
Fearing deportation, many undocumented immigrants in Danbury -- Brazilians, Hispanics and others -- have pulled up stakes the past few years and left the area, according to some local observers.
The U.S. recession has certainly played a role in stemming the number of immigrants coming to the United States. But ICE has also scattered them out of Danbury, cultural leaders claim.
"They have gone to Waterbury, to Bridgeport, to New York, to Westchester County,'' said Wilson Hernandez, the former president of the Ecuadorian Civic Center in Danbury. "Yes, the economy is a factor, but the other factor -- the biggest -- is the city's anti-immigration policies.''
The ICE partnership brought crowds of people to City Hall in 2008 to protest the city's proposed involvement with federal immigration enforcement officials. Despite those protests, the City Council -- with the support of Mayor Mark Boughton -- voted to join the program.
Two city police detectives -- Louis Ramos and Joseph LeRose -- have undergone training with ICE agents. At a council meeting in June, Police Chief Alan Baker said the program has resulted in "several arrests'' in the city.
Baker said last week that the ICE program simply formalized a working arrangement Danbury already had with ICE -- the same relationship it has with the State Police or the FBI.
Nothing has changed in the city, Baker insisted, and the dire warnings of the City Hall protesters have not come true.
"There haven't been any sweeps," he said. "We're not stopping people to check their immigration status. We don't do that and it hasn't happened.''
In large part, Baker said, that hasn't happened because the Danbury Police Department is opposed to such moves. At the same time, he said, it's also because the department can't afford to do it.
"We don't have the resources,'' Baker said.
Breno DaMata, editor of Communidade News, a local Brazilian weekly newspaper, offered a different take on the city's immigration climate.
"Everybody knows Danbury is not friendly to immigrants,'' DaMata said flatly.
A few blocks away from Banana Brazil, Cleates Xavier -- the owner of Eliza's Store on Main Street -- said he's seen the same loss of Brazilian clientele.
"The Brazilian population in the city has gone down by a lot -- at least a third,'' Xavier said.
Part of that decrease is because of the U.S. recession. Brazilians came to Danbury for years in part because there were good-paying jobs here. Now, those jobs are scarce and the Brazilian economy is heating up.
Simply put, people move to find work.
And yet, the anxiety of an ICE arrest -- the fear of deportation -- has not gone away.
The rhetoric on both sides has cooled, Hernandez said, but there is a still "a nervousness" in the city's immigrant population.
"There are still a lot of people who don't know what's going to happen,'' Hernandez said.
Danbury attorney Agostinho Ribeiro, who is of Brazilian heritage, echoed those remarks.
"The mood is different,'' Ribeiro said. "There seems to be an underlying anxiety. There's still a certain discomfort here."
Ingrid Alvarez-DeMarzo, the director of the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury, called the issue "the elephant'' in the room of the city's policies.
"It's the conversation at the dinner table, at breakfast,'' she said. "We're still finding out what ICE means. There's a lot going on and we don't know. It's a big gray area."
But in some ways, it's not only 287(g) and the city's involvement with ICE that is having an effect on local immigrant populations.
This year, ICE began a program called Secure Communities, which it described on its website as "a comprehensive plan to identify and remove criminal aliens.''
All police departments in Fairfield County, including the Danbury police, are working cooperatively with ICE on the Secure Communities program.
Harold Ort, a spokesman for ICE, said last week that because these people are in the United States illegally, their arrest and deportation is a good thing.
"We're moving in a positive direction to remove criminals as well as illegal aliens,'' Ort said.
Whether it's the 287(g) program or the Secure Communities program, the impact has been felt in Greater Danbury and beyond.
"There has been an increase in people being picked up, a definite increase,'' said Kristan Exner, a Danbury attorney who works on immigration cases. "(Federal officials) are really focusing on criminal arrests and outstanding orders of deportation. It's not just in Danbury, it's in the entire Fairfield County area.''
Michael Boyle, an immigration lawyer with offices in Danbury and New Haven, concurred with Exner.
"I have people being arrested all the time,'' Boyle said. "No question.''
Both Boyle and Exner said they've had cases in which a person arrested for driving while intoxicated had the case turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings.
"A lot of the problems stem from people just not knowing the laws,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "People need some street smarts.''
And, she said, there's not a lot of help in the city, or the state, to help people who are in Danbury illegally work toward legal residency.
"We do the best we can,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "But we're in a city with very limited legalization counseling.''
DaMata said after the presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008, there was widespread hope that comprehensive reform on the nation's immigration policies would clarify what undocumented immigrants needed to do to earn legal status in the United States.
"It's not happening,'' DeMata said. "People are losing faith.''
And, he said, the combination of a sluggish economy and the fear of deportation is only accelerating the process.
"People are thinking, `It's time to leave,''' DeMata said.
Hernandez said that when those people leave, they take away a valuable human resource.
"These people are valuable human assets to the community,'' Hernandez said, adding that their loss will be felt economically and culturally.
"This has been politicians playing the immigration card,'' Hernandez said. "But nobody ever talks about what the cost to the city has been. I'm not running for office or anything. But I think we should get rid of that card forever."
http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Anxiety-remains-a-year-after-Danbury-signs-ICE-666528.php
NewsTimes.Com
September 20, 2010
DANBURY -- Nilton Coelho owns Banana Brazil, a luncheonette on Main Street in downtown Danbury. As the name suggests, he serves Brazilian food.
The problem is, there aren't as many Brazilians in the city as there used to be, which means there aren't as many orders for plantains and sausage.
"My business has gone down,'' Coelho said recently.
As a result, he's spending more money on advertising to bring more Hispanics and more whites through the door. The strategy has worked, Coelho said, and that's helped him make up for the decline in Brazilian business.
But there is also the impact of 287(g) -- the federal statute that has become the informal name of the Danbury Police Department's formal affiliation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The memorandum of agreement between ICE and the city of Danbury was adopted in September 2009.
Fearing deportation, many undocumented immigrants in Danbury -- Brazilians, Hispanics and others -- have pulled up stakes the past few years and left the area, according to some local observers.
The U.S. recession has certainly played a role in stemming the number of immigrants coming to the United States. But ICE has also scattered them out of Danbury, cultural leaders claim.
"They have gone to Waterbury, to Bridgeport, to New York, to Westchester County,'' said Wilson Hernandez, the former president of the Ecuadorian Civic Center in Danbury. "Yes, the economy is a factor, but the other factor -- the biggest -- is the city's anti-immigration policies.''
The ICE partnership brought crowds of people to City Hall in 2008 to protest the city's proposed involvement with federal immigration enforcement officials. Despite those protests, the City Council -- with the support of Mayor Mark Boughton -- voted to join the program.
Two city police detectives -- Louis Ramos and Joseph LeRose -- have undergone training with ICE agents. At a council meeting in June, Police Chief Alan Baker said the program has resulted in "several arrests'' in the city.
Baker said last week that the ICE program simply formalized a working arrangement Danbury already had with ICE -- the same relationship it has with the State Police or the FBI.
Nothing has changed in the city, Baker insisted, and the dire warnings of the City Hall protesters have not come true.
"There haven't been any sweeps," he said. "We're not stopping people to check their immigration status. We don't do that and it hasn't happened.''
In large part, Baker said, that hasn't happened because the Danbury Police Department is opposed to such moves. At the same time, he said, it's also because the department can't afford to do it.
"We don't have the resources,'' Baker said.
Breno DaMata, editor of Communidade News, a local Brazilian weekly newspaper, offered a different take on the city's immigration climate.
"Everybody knows Danbury is not friendly to immigrants,'' DaMata said flatly.
A few blocks away from Banana Brazil, Cleates Xavier -- the owner of Eliza's Store on Main Street -- said he's seen the same loss of Brazilian clientele.
"The Brazilian population in the city has gone down by a lot -- at least a third,'' Xavier said.
Part of that decrease is because of the U.S. recession. Brazilians came to Danbury for years in part because there were good-paying jobs here. Now, those jobs are scarce and the Brazilian economy is heating up.
Simply put, people move to find work.
And yet, the anxiety of an ICE arrest -- the fear of deportation -- has not gone away.
The rhetoric on both sides has cooled, Hernandez said, but there is a still "a nervousness" in the city's immigrant population.
"There are still a lot of people who don't know what's going to happen,'' Hernandez said.
Danbury attorney Agostinho Ribeiro, who is of Brazilian heritage, echoed those remarks.
"The mood is different,'' Ribeiro said. "There seems to be an underlying anxiety. There's still a certain discomfort here."
Ingrid Alvarez-DeMarzo, the director of the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury, called the issue "the elephant'' in the room of the city's policies.
"It's the conversation at the dinner table, at breakfast,'' she said. "We're still finding out what ICE means. There's a lot going on and we don't know. It's a big gray area."
But in some ways, it's not only 287(g) and the city's involvement with ICE that is having an effect on local immigrant populations.
This year, ICE began a program called Secure Communities, which it described on its website as "a comprehensive plan to identify and remove criminal aliens.''
All police departments in Fairfield County, including the Danbury police, are working cooperatively with ICE on the Secure Communities program.
Harold Ort, a spokesman for ICE, said last week that because these people are in the United States illegally, their arrest and deportation is a good thing.
"We're moving in a positive direction to remove criminals as well as illegal aliens,'' Ort said.
Whether it's the 287(g) program or the Secure Communities program, the impact has been felt in Greater Danbury and beyond.
"There has been an increase in people being picked up, a definite increase,'' said Kristan Exner, a Danbury attorney who works on immigration cases. "(Federal officials) are really focusing on criminal arrests and outstanding orders of deportation. It's not just in Danbury, it's in the entire Fairfield County area.''
Michael Boyle, an immigration lawyer with offices in Danbury and New Haven, concurred with Exner.
"I have people being arrested all the time,'' Boyle said. "No question.''
Both Boyle and Exner said they've had cases in which a person arrested for driving while intoxicated had the case turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings.
"A lot of the problems stem from people just not knowing the laws,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "People need some street smarts.''
And, she said, there's not a lot of help in the city, or the state, to help people who are in Danbury illegally work toward legal residency.
"We do the best we can,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "But we're in a city with very limited legalization counseling.''
DaMata said after the presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008, there was widespread hope that comprehensive reform on the nation's immigration policies would clarify what undocumented immigrants needed to do to earn legal status in the United States.
"It's not happening,'' DeMata said. "People are losing faith.''
And, he said, the combination of a sluggish economy and the fear of deportation is only accelerating the process.
"People are thinking, `It's time to leave,''' DeMata said.
Hernandez said that when those people leave, they take away a valuable human resource.
"These people are valuable human assets to the community,'' Hernandez said, adding that their loss will be felt economically and culturally.
"This has been politicians playing the immigration card,'' Hernandez said. "But nobody ever talks about what the cost to the city has been. I'm not running for office or anything. But I think we should get rid of that card forever."
http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Anxiety-remains-a-year-after-Danbury-signs-ICE-666528.php
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Report: East Haven Police Target Latinos
By Thomas MacMillan
New Haven Independent
Apr 23, 2010
A week after the feds slammed the town’s police procedures, a damning new report prepared by Yale student attorneys indicates that East Haven police ticket Latino drivers at vastly disproportionate rates—then record them as white motorists, concealing the facts.
The new report, issued Thursday evening by Yale Law School students, states that over an eight-month period, nearly 60 percent of traffic tickets in East Haven involved Latino drivers. Yet police recorded the ethnicity of drivers as “Hispanic” in less than 5 percent of traffic tickets, according to the report. Read it here.
The Yale report follows just one week after the U.S. Department of Justice issued a letter to East Haven’s lawyer, stating that the department had found significant “areas of concern” in its investigation of policies at the East Haven police department. The Department of Justice has been looking into allegations—raised by a Fair Haven church—that East Haven police are engaged in harassment and abuse of Latinos.
East Haven business owners like Marcia Chacon (pictured) claim Latinos are subject to unwarranted traffic stops, harassment, and even violence at the hands of East Haven cops. Police have denied the charges.
The Department of Justice’s letter to East Haven listed seven different areas of concern, from inadequate oversight of officers’ use of force to a lack of a proper citizen complaint process. That letter prompted East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon to place police chief Len Gallo on administrative leave this week. He turned over his badge and gun on Wednesday. Read the letter here.
The police brass shake-up is the latest development in an ongoing story of alleged police harassment of Latinos just over New Haven’s border in East Haven—a border that separates not just towns, but two vastly different approaches to a growing local immigrant community.
The alleged ongoing harassment first came to light last year when a New Haven priest, Father James Manship, was arrested in an East Haven store while videotaping police who were allegedly harassing the storeowners. Click play to see his camera footage.
Manship Friday welcomed the traffic ticket report as quantitative proof that a problem exists, which will make it more difficult to ignore. “Now it’s some hard facts,” he said. “Are you going to keep saying we don’t have a problem here?”
Manship’s Fair Haven church, St. Rose of Lima, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, which the department decided last December to investigate.
Last fall, as part of its own investigation into the East Haven Police Department, St. Rose of Lima requested to see records of traffic tickets issued by police on Main Street and Route 80 between June 1, 2008 and Feb. 28, 2009. Those tickets were analyzed by Yale student attorneys assisting St. Rose, resulting in Thursday’s report.
The East Haven Police Department did not turn over all the information requested by St. Rose of Lima. That failure is the subject of an ongoing Freedom of Information case.
In the newly released study, Yale students compared the names on the traffic tickets to lists of Hispanic names, including a list developed by the U.S. Census. The students then determined that 56.3 percent of traffic tickets in the eight-month period were issued to Hispanics. This is significant in a town with a Hispanic population of just 5.8 percent, the report states.
Yale students then compared their analysis of the ethnicity of drivers with the ethnicities reported by East Haven police. They found that police “failed to correctly identify the race of vast majority of individuals to whom they issued traffic tickets.” Police reported giving tickets mostly to white people. Police recorded Hispanic drivers for only 4.8 percent of tickets, according to the report.
An accompanying graph shows that one officer in particular, Dennis Spaulding, is responsible for 97 tickets issued to people with Hispanic names. Another graph shows that Spaulding reported issuing 120 tickets to white people, four to black people, and none to Hispanic drivers in the same period. Spaulding has been accused by name of racial harassment by Latino business owners.
Another graph shows that Hispanic drivers on average received higher fines following traffic stops than other ethnicities.
One section of the report states that traffic tickets were issued more proportionally by ethnicity when East Haven police were engaged in “Click It or Ticket,” a national program of seatbelt enforcement checkpoints. East Haven police stopped only five Hispanics and 35 white people at such checkpoints. The report suggests that since Click It or Ticket is a national program, “the pattern of discriminatory enforcement dissipates when the EHPD is operating under state and/or federal guidelines.”
In conclusion, the report states that the disproportionate level of traffic stops involving Hispanics, provides “indirect support” for allegations of racial harassment and abuse. Combined with the improper recording of ethnicities, the findings “may suggest EHPD officers lack the training and supervision they need to fairly enforce the law,” the report states.
Tafari Lumumba, a student attorney working on the case, said the report will be sent to the Department of Justice, “to supplement their investigation.”
The ultimate goal is to “change the culture of the department,” Lumumba said. Chief Gallo’s administrative leave is a “good first step,” but the policing problems in East Haven are department-wide.
“It’s not just one or two bad apples,” Lumumba said.
Meanwhile, police harassment continues in East Haven, Lumumba said. He and the rest of the legal team still receive phone calls every week from people complaining about the use of racial slurs by police, or reports of police “putting their hands on people.”
“Not much has truly changed,” Lumumba said.
“As recently as Sunday night, somebody else was accosted and threatened,” Manship said.
From the beginning, St. Rose of Lima has been trying to document what has been happening in East Haven, Manship said. “But we’ve been told by town officials that it’s not happening.”
On Friday afternoon, Chacon was behind the counter of her Main Street business, My Country Store. She said the policing situation has improved recently. “People still tell me they are stopped for no reason,” she said. “Some people are still afraid.”
The ouster of Chief Gallo is a sign of justice, Chacon said. But more needs to be done. New regulations need to be implemented at the police department, she said.
Asked for comment about the traffic tickets report, Mayor Almon’s office emailed a statement released after the mayor ordered Chief Gallo to administrative leave:
“Department of Justice has noted a complete lack of training, guidelines, oversight and supervision in a number of critical areas. The question now is; has there been a complete lack of leadership in these critical areas? At the end of the day my concern is how to prevent this from exposing the town to liability which would ultimately cost taxpayers’ money.”
http://newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/report_tickets_show_east_haven_targets_latinos/id_25588
New Haven Independent
Apr 23, 2010
A week after the feds slammed the town’s police procedures, a damning new report prepared by Yale student attorneys indicates that East Haven police ticket Latino drivers at vastly disproportionate rates—then record them as white motorists, concealing the facts.
The new report, issued Thursday evening by Yale Law School students, states that over an eight-month period, nearly 60 percent of traffic tickets in East Haven involved Latino drivers. Yet police recorded the ethnicity of drivers as “Hispanic” in less than 5 percent of traffic tickets, according to the report. Read it here.
The Yale report follows just one week after the U.S. Department of Justice issued a letter to East Haven’s lawyer, stating that the department had found significant “areas of concern” in its investigation of policies at the East Haven police department. The Department of Justice has been looking into allegations—raised by a Fair Haven church—that East Haven police are engaged in harassment and abuse of Latinos.
East Haven business owners like Marcia Chacon (pictured) claim Latinos are subject to unwarranted traffic stops, harassment, and even violence at the hands of East Haven cops. Police have denied the charges.
The Department of Justice’s letter to East Haven listed seven different areas of concern, from inadequate oversight of officers’ use of force to a lack of a proper citizen complaint process. That letter prompted East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon to place police chief Len Gallo on administrative leave this week. He turned over his badge and gun on Wednesday. Read the letter here.
The police brass shake-up is the latest development in an ongoing story of alleged police harassment of Latinos just over New Haven’s border in East Haven—a border that separates not just towns, but two vastly different approaches to a growing local immigrant community.
The alleged ongoing harassment first came to light last year when a New Haven priest, Father James Manship, was arrested in an East Haven store while videotaping police who were allegedly harassing the storeowners. Click play to see his camera footage.
Manship Friday welcomed the traffic ticket report as quantitative proof that a problem exists, which will make it more difficult to ignore. “Now it’s some hard facts,” he said. “Are you going to keep saying we don’t have a problem here?”
Manship’s Fair Haven church, St. Rose of Lima, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, which the department decided last December to investigate.
Last fall, as part of its own investigation into the East Haven Police Department, St. Rose of Lima requested to see records of traffic tickets issued by police on Main Street and Route 80 between June 1, 2008 and Feb. 28, 2009. Those tickets were analyzed by Yale student attorneys assisting St. Rose, resulting in Thursday’s report.
The East Haven Police Department did not turn over all the information requested by St. Rose of Lima. That failure is the subject of an ongoing Freedom of Information case.
In the newly released study, Yale students compared the names on the traffic tickets to lists of Hispanic names, including a list developed by the U.S. Census. The students then determined that 56.3 percent of traffic tickets in the eight-month period were issued to Hispanics. This is significant in a town with a Hispanic population of just 5.8 percent, the report states.
Yale students then compared their analysis of the ethnicity of drivers with the ethnicities reported by East Haven police. They found that police “failed to correctly identify the race of vast majority of individuals to whom they issued traffic tickets.” Police reported giving tickets mostly to white people. Police recorded Hispanic drivers for only 4.8 percent of tickets, according to the report.
An accompanying graph shows that one officer in particular, Dennis Spaulding, is responsible for 97 tickets issued to people with Hispanic names. Another graph shows that Spaulding reported issuing 120 tickets to white people, four to black people, and none to Hispanic drivers in the same period. Spaulding has been accused by name of racial harassment by Latino business owners.
Another graph shows that Hispanic drivers on average received higher fines following traffic stops than other ethnicities.
One section of the report states that traffic tickets were issued more proportionally by ethnicity when East Haven police were engaged in “Click It or Ticket,” a national program of seatbelt enforcement checkpoints. East Haven police stopped only five Hispanics and 35 white people at such checkpoints. The report suggests that since Click It or Ticket is a national program, “the pattern of discriminatory enforcement dissipates when the EHPD is operating under state and/or federal guidelines.”
In conclusion, the report states that the disproportionate level of traffic stops involving Hispanics, provides “indirect support” for allegations of racial harassment and abuse. Combined with the improper recording of ethnicities, the findings “may suggest EHPD officers lack the training and supervision they need to fairly enforce the law,” the report states.
Tafari Lumumba, a student attorney working on the case, said the report will be sent to the Department of Justice, “to supplement their investigation.”
The ultimate goal is to “change the culture of the department,” Lumumba said. Chief Gallo’s administrative leave is a “good first step,” but the policing problems in East Haven are department-wide.
“It’s not just one or two bad apples,” Lumumba said.
Meanwhile, police harassment continues in East Haven, Lumumba said. He and the rest of the legal team still receive phone calls every week from people complaining about the use of racial slurs by police, or reports of police “putting their hands on people.”
“Not much has truly changed,” Lumumba said.
“As recently as Sunday night, somebody else was accosted and threatened,” Manship said.
From the beginning, St. Rose of Lima has been trying to document what has been happening in East Haven, Manship said. “But we’ve been told by town officials that it’s not happening.”
On Friday afternoon, Chacon was behind the counter of her Main Street business, My Country Store. She said the policing situation has improved recently. “People still tell me they are stopped for no reason,” she said. “Some people are still afraid.”
The ouster of Chief Gallo is a sign of justice, Chacon said. But more needs to be done. New regulations need to be implemented at the police department, she said.
Asked for comment about the traffic tickets report, Mayor Almon’s office emailed a statement released after the mayor ordered Chief Gallo to administrative leave:
“Department of Justice has noted a complete lack of training, guidelines, oversight and supervision in a number of critical areas. The question now is; has there been a complete lack of leadership in these critical areas? At the end of the day my concern is how to prevent this from exposing the town to liability which would ultimately cost taxpayers’ money.”
http://newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/report_tickets_show_east_haven_targets_latinos/id_25588
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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
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
Saturday, October 31, 2009
IMMIGRATION RAIDS: Arrestees Claim Rights Were Violated During New Haven Immigration Raids
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
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
Friday, October 30, 2009
Immigrants: Conn. raid retaliation for ID cards
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press
October 29, 2009
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Ten New Haven residents filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing federal agents of violating their rights during an immigration raid they say was in retaliation for a city program that provided ID cards to foreigners in the country illegally — the first of its kind in the nation.
The sweeps in New Haven on June 6, 2007, came two days after the city approved issuing identification cards to all of its residents, regardless of immigration status. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have denied that the early morning raids were retaliatory, saying planning began the year before.
"The New Haven raids were not a product of routine immigration enforcement," the lawsuit states. "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."
Spokesmen for the U.S. Attorney's office and ICE declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, cites e-mails between federal officials that the residents say show hostility to the ID card program and an intent to stop it.
One e-mail from the U.S. Attorney's Office on March 28, 2007 disclosed that an ICE official "had been talking to his headquarters about the fact that New Haven is becoming a sanctuary city." On May 11, the ICE official held a conference call with several prosecutors to discuss how to address the "headaches in New Haven," according to the lawsuit.
The comments took on a racially charged tone after a city committee approved the ID card program, the lawsuit alleges. "Yale is loading up the Amistad with illegal immigrants and sailing them to freedom, while (ICE counsel) openly weeps in Hartford," an ICE attorney wrote, referring to the slave ship that was commandeered by African captives who eventually won their freedom.
An ICE official then drafted a letter to the city expressing concerns with the program and discouraging the mayor from implementing it, according to the lawsuit. ICE officials and the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to disguise their collaboration to make it look like the letter was coming from prosecutors instead of ICE, the lawsuit alleges.
The defendants then planned their first and only raid of the year, including only 33 New Haven-area addresses in their target list when there were 5,500 outstanding warrants for fugitives, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit contends ICE's retaliatory intent became clear after the raid when a spokesman declared, "There is truly no safe haven for fugitive aliens."
The lawsuit alleges ICE agents broke into homes without search warrants or consent and arrested residents based on their race or ethnicity. When the girlfriend of one of those arrested asked where they were going during the raid, one of the agents laughed and taunted that they were going to a concert by Juan Gabriel, a famous Mexican singer, according to the lawsuit.
"ICE agents broke into my home without permission while I was still sleeping, pulled the covers from my bed, and arrested me for no reason," Jose Solano-Yangua, a plaintiff, said in a statement. "I was terrified and humiliated."
In June, a federal judge ruled that agents violated the constitutional rights of four immigrants in the raids. Immigration Judge Michael Straus said the ICE 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, whose names were not released.
Immigration officials have denied claims that the 32 arrests that morning were improper, and they said the people who were arrested had been ordered by judges to leave the country. They said in court documents that they were allowed into the homes during the sweep.
Witnesses have alleged in court documents that parents were arrested in front of their frightened children, agents refused to identify themselves and told people in the homes to shut up.
Yale Law School students are representing the immigrants.
Of the 32 arrested, none are still in custody, according to the Yale students. Of the 19 that Yale represents, 4 agreed to leave the country, 10 are still fighting their cases and five won motions to suppress evidence, according to the students.
The lawsuit, which names former and current ICE officials as defendants, seeks damages and a judgment that the officials violated the Constitution.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9gwq_xjV5MtRZANVPq9GmATinzgD9BKA3H01
Associated Press
October 29, 2009
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Ten New Haven residents filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing federal agents of violating their rights during an immigration raid they say was in retaliation for a city program that provided ID cards to foreigners in the country illegally — the first of its kind in the nation.
The sweeps in New Haven on June 6, 2007, came two days after the city approved issuing identification cards to all of its residents, regardless of immigration status. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have denied that the early morning raids were retaliatory, saying planning began the year before.
"The New Haven raids were not a product of routine immigration enforcement," the lawsuit states. "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."
Spokesmen for the U.S. Attorney's office and ICE declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, cites e-mails between federal officials that the residents say show hostility to the ID card program and an intent to stop it.
One e-mail from the U.S. Attorney's Office on March 28, 2007 disclosed that an ICE official "had been talking to his headquarters about the fact that New Haven is becoming a sanctuary city." On May 11, the ICE official held a conference call with several prosecutors to discuss how to address the "headaches in New Haven," according to the lawsuit.
The comments took on a racially charged tone after a city committee approved the ID card program, the lawsuit alleges. "Yale is loading up the Amistad with illegal immigrants and sailing them to freedom, while (ICE counsel) openly weeps in Hartford," an ICE attorney wrote, referring to the slave ship that was commandeered by African captives who eventually won their freedom.
An ICE official then drafted a letter to the city expressing concerns with the program and discouraging the mayor from implementing it, according to the lawsuit. ICE officials and the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to disguise their collaboration to make it look like the letter was coming from prosecutors instead of ICE, the lawsuit alleges.
The defendants then planned their first and only raid of the year, including only 33 New Haven-area addresses in their target list when there were 5,500 outstanding warrants for fugitives, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit contends ICE's retaliatory intent became clear after the raid when a spokesman declared, "There is truly no safe haven for fugitive aliens."
The lawsuit alleges ICE agents broke into homes without search warrants or consent and arrested residents based on their race or ethnicity. When the girlfriend of one of those arrested asked where they were going during the raid, one of the agents laughed and taunted that they were going to a concert by Juan Gabriel, a famous Mexican singer, according to the lawsuit.
"ICE agents broke into my home without permission while I was still sleeping, pulled the covers from my bed, and arrested me for no reason," Jose Solano-Yangua, a plaintiff, said in a statement. "I was terrified and humiliated."
In June, a federal judge ruled that agents violated the constitutional rights of four immigrants in the raids. Immigration Judge Michael Straus said the ICE 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, whose names were not released.
Immigration officials have denied claims that the 32 arrests that morning were improper, and they said the people who were arrested had been ordered by judges to leave the country. They said in court documents that they were allowed into the homes during the sweep.
Witnesses have alleged in court documents that parents were arrested in front of their frightened children, agents refused to identify themselves and told people in the homes to shut up.
Yale Law School students are representing the immigrants.
Of the 32 arrested, none are still in custody, according to the Yale students. Of the 19 that Yale represents, 4 agreed to leave the country, 10 are still fighting their cases and five won motions to suppress evidence, according to the students.
The lawsuit, which names former and current ICE officials as defendants, seeks damages and a judgment that the officials violated the Constitution.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9gwq_xjV5MtRZANVPq9GmATinzgD9BKA3H01
Friday, October 2, 2009
Immigrants sue feds over 2007 raids
By Esther Zuckerman and Colin Ross
Yale Daily News
Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Ten New Haven residents intend to file a lawsuit today against federal immigration agents and officials, accusing them of violating constitutional rights during the raids in New Haven on June 6, 2007.
The 10 residents, who will be represented by Yale Law School students, claim that the raids were unconstitutional because federal agents lacked search warrants and arrested people solely on the basis of race and ethnicity. The residents are expected to sue not only the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who participated in the raid on the ground but also their supervisors, whose decisions the plaintiffs say led to the infringements of civil rights.
This is the first time lawyers have challenged the constitutionality of the New Haven raids in the federal judicial branch. Previous lawsuits have been filed in federal immigration court, the entity within the executive branch that deals with deportation.
The Yale lawyers say the raids were mounted in retaliation of the Board of Aldermen’s approval two days earlier of the Elm City Resident Card, an ID card provided to residents regardless of immigration status. ICE officials have said the raids were routine enforcement in full accordance with the law.
On June 6, 2007, ICE agents raided eight apartments and homes, detaining 29 New Haven residents — five of whom were the intended targets of the raids.
“ICE agents broke into my home without permission while I was still sleeping, pulled the covers from my bed, and arrested me for no reason,” said Jose Solano-Yangua, a plaintiff in the case, in a press release. “I was terrified and humiliated. We are bringing this suit, because we refuse to let our families and community live in fear.”
Since 2007, a team of lawyers and students led by Law School professor Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93 has been working to prove that the individual arrests were
illegal. They have argued that the searches and seizures violated the immigrants’
Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantee due process of law.
One of the detainees has been deported, five volunteered to leave, and 17 cases are still pending.
Until now, the lawyers have been litigating the individual cases. This new lawsuit seeks to hold individual ICE officials accountable for the alleged constitutional violations.
In a press release, Lindsay Nash LAW ’10, one of the Yale law students representing the plaintiffs, blamed senior ICE officials for the raids because they pressured regional ICE offices to make “arrest quotas.”
In 2006, the director of ICE’s Detention and Removal Office, John Torres, increased the agency’s goal for immigration arrests to 1,000 per regional enforcement team, up from 125, according to internal ICE memos obtained by the Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information request.
That same year, Torres permitted arrests of immigrants without criminal records or fugitive status to count toward ICE’s goal, according to the ICE documents.
In February, ICE spokesman Richard Rocha told the News that the goal increase was in accordance with the agency’s mission.
“The number of arrests is a goal, not a quota, and we do prioritize,” he said at the time. “But if, in the course of our work, we encounter other illegal individuals, we have to enforce the law.”
Norma Franceschi, a Fair Haven proprietor and community leader, praised the suit for providing the federal court an opportunity to reform immigration law.
Father James Manship of St. Rose of Lima Church said that the neighborhood supports the plaintiffs in the case.
“Our community will not be intimidated or silenced,” Manship said in the press release. “We will stand with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit in order to seek justice.”
Ana Munoz LAW ’10, one of the Yale law students working on the lawsuit, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
New Haven is home to an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 undocumented immigrants, most of whom live in Fair Haven.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/city-news/2009/10/28/immigrants-sue-feds-over-2007-raid/
Yale Daily News
Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Ten New Haven residents intend to file a lawsuit today against federal immigration agents and officials, accusing them of violating constitutional rights during the raids in New Haven on June 6, 2007.
The 10 residents, who will be represented by Yale Law School students, claim that the raids were unconstitutional because federal agents lacked search warrants and arrested people solely on the basis of race and ethnicity. The residents are expected to sue not only the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who participated in the raid on the ground but also their supervisors, whose decisions the plaintiffs say led to the infringements of civil rights.
This is the first time lawyers have challenged the constitutionality of the New Haven raids in the federal judicial branch. Previous lawsuits have been filed in federal immigration court, the entity within the executive branch that deals with deportation.
The Yale lawyers say the raids were mounted in retaliation of the Board of Aldermen’s approval two days earlier of the Elm City Resident Card, an ID card provided to residents regardless of immigration status. ICE officials have said the raids were routine enforcement in full accordance with the law.
On June 6, 2007, ICE agents raided eight apartments and homes, detaining 29 New Haven residents — five of whom were the intended targets of the raids.
“ICE agents broke into my home without permission while I was still sleeping, pulled the covers from my bed, and arrested me for no reason,” said Jose Solano-Yangua, a plaintiff in the case, in a press release. “I was terrified and humiliated. We are bringing this suit, because we refuse to let our families and community live in fear.”
Since 2007, a team of lawyers and students led by Law School professor Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93 has been working to prove that the individual arrests were
illegal. They have argued that the searches and seizures violated the immigrants’
Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantee due process of law.
One of the detainees has been deported, five volunteered to leave, and 17 cases are still pending.
Until now, the lawyers have been litigating the individual cases. This new lawsuit seeks to hold individual ICE officials accountable for the alleged constitutional violations.
In a press release, Lindsay Nash LAW ’10, one of the Yale law students representing the plaintiffs, blamed senior ICE officials for the raids because they pressured regional ICE offices to make “arrest quotas.”
In 2006, the director of ICE’s Detention and Removal Office, John Torres, increased the agency’s goal for immigration arrests to 1,000 per regional enforcement team, up from 125, according to internal ICE memos obtained by the Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information request.
That same year, Torres permitted arrests of immigrants without criminal records or fugitive status to count toward ICE’s goal, according to the ICE documents.
In February, ICE spokesman Richard Rocha told the News that the goal increase was in accordance with the agency’s mission.
“The number of arrests is a goal, not a quota, and we do prioritize,” he said at the time. “But if, in the course of our work, we encounter other illegal individuals, we have to enforce the law.”
Norma Franceschi, a Fair Haven proprietor and community leader, praised the suit for providing the federal court an opportunity to reform immigration law.
Father James Manship of St. Rose of Lima Church said that the neighborhood supports the plaintiffs in the case.
“Our community will not be intimidated or silenced,” Manship said in the press release. “We will stand with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit in order to seek justice.”
Ana Munoz LAW ’10, one of the Yale law students working on the lawsuit, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
New Haven is home to an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 undocumented immigrants, most of whom live in Fair Haven.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/city-news/2009/10/28/immigrants-sue-feds-over-2007-raid/
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Part 2 of 2: The unmaking of a haven
By Isaac Arnsdorf
Staff Reporter
Yale Daily News
September 29, 2009
When Teresa Gonzalez Vala was put in the unmarked white van outside her house on Atwater Street early on the morning of June 6, 2007, there were already four men and two women inside. They sat on two benches facing each other between the barred, tinted windows. She thought they would be deported right away.
Cirilo Sedeño Trujillo, too, thought they would be going straight back to Mexico. But he was not as scared, or at least he did not want to appear to be; he had been arrested once before, and he felt prepared for whatever was coming. Plus, he knew something the immigration officers did not, which was that Teresa’s boyfriend, Amilcar Soto Velazquez, had hidden his cell phone in his pocket before he was handcuffed.
When there were nine people inside, the ignition started smoothly and the van started to move, fast, with Teresa angling to see where they were going through the windshield, which was also the only light source. One right and two lefts later, the van stopped in front of a house on Peck Street.
Inside, on the second floor, a 34-year-old man was sleeping with his wife and children in the same room when they were awakened by a knock. He went into the living room half-dressed and asked, “Who is it?” in Spanish (his English being meager). “Police” was the reply, also in Spanish.
“Who are you looking for?” asked the resident. Someone named Chavez. There was no one named Chavez in the apartment, he answered.
He opened the door three or four inches and saw two policemen. One of them pushed the door open, and the resident stepped back to avoid being hit. The officer came inside and stationed himself in front of the door, outstretching his arms to block anyone from leaving, dropping them only momentarily to allow his fellow officer inside. The resident’s wife and son came running into the living room.
The second officer asked where the front door led. He left, and two more came: a male, armed, and a female. In English, they questioned the resident about his immigration status; his 12-year-old son translated, and the resident gave the officers his documentation. While one of the officers questioned him, another tried to open the door to his cousin’s room, but it was locked. The officer hit the door with his hand and feet, damaging the lock. But the cousin was not inside; he had left for work at 6 a.m. that morning.
The officer went into the bedroom of the resident’s live-in nephew, who was 22 and still in bed with his girlfriend. “Where is Chavez?” an agent yelled at them. The 22-year-old said he did not know anyone named Chavez. The agent ordered him and his girlfriend out of bed, handcuffed them and led them into the living room. His uncle, too, was handcuffed.
Officer Richard McCaffrey, who has worked in immigration enforcement for 15 years, was initially outside the house on Peck Street, then entered the back door and interacted with some of the occupants. At no time, he would later tell a court, did he see any unnecessary force or any officer enter without permission.
“There is another side here,” McCaffrey said in an interview at his office in Hartford. But, he added, the matter is still ongoing, and the litigation is still pending, and as a field officer he is not authorized to speak to the press at all. He said he regretted seeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement get beat up in the press without the agency being able to defend itself, to tell its side of the story.
“I would love to,” he said. “But I can’t.”
***
In all, seven people were arrested on Peck Street, four more of whom came into Teresa Gonzalez Vala’s van, making 13 inside. They were squeezed in, some of them literally sitting on top of each other. Teresa felt fortunate she didn’t have anyone on her lap because the pain in her bladder was intense as it was; she still had not had a chance to relieve herself.
The van left Peck Street, got on Interstate 95 and pulled into the parking lot of a closed tollbooth off exit 42 in West Haven, where a big white bus was waiting. The detainees from all the vans were being transferred to the bus to be taken to Hartford for processing. There was an agent, a man, who spoke Spanish, so Teresa told him, “If you don’t take me to a bathroom, I’m going to pee on the bus.” It was now 9:30 a.m.
The agent took her and another woman to a bathroom near the parking lot. He went into the bathroom with them, and Teresa asked him to take off her handcuffs so she could use the toilet. He refused. So the two women, complete strangers, went into the stall together and took turns: One pulled down the other’s pants, and she used the toilet, but with her hands tied in front of her she wasn’t able to wipe. Then the other pulled her pants back up, and then they switched. When they were finished, the officer didn’t let them wash their hands before bringing them back to the bus.
The men and women had to sit on different sides of the bus, separated by bars. Their handcuffs were removed, replaced instead with metal chains that tied their wrists, waists and legs. Cirilo Sedeño Trujillo, trying to keep up his spirits, joked to himself that the shackles made him walk like a penguin. As the bus took off, the chained passengers leaned with every turn, unable to brace themselves, unable even to scratch their noses.
But Amilcar — he has no idea how — could somehow reach the cell phone he had smuggled aboard, and he called Angelo Reyes and Norma Franceschi, the Fair Haven proprietors and community leaders. “I’m telling you, there are like 20 people here,” Amilcar told him. Norma and Angelo wanted to know who they were. The detainees started passing the phone around, bending over as much to hide the phone as to reach their ear while their hands were bound. Angelo, Norma and Father Jim Manship of St. Rose of Lima Church relayed the names to Community Services Administrator Kica Matos until the phone’s battery ran out.
As people started calling Matos back with information, she wanted to pass it along to Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who ran a clinic that works on immigration cases. His secretary told Matos he was out of town, so she left an emergency message. He called her back within an hour, and she told him what had happened and asked him to represent the detainees.
When the bus arrived at the garage beneath the Department of Removal Operations office in Hartford, the detainees were taken into the elevator and up to the top floor to be photographed and fingerprinted. Their hands were released from the chains but their legs remained tied.
One of the agents, a Puerto Rican, gave Amilcar a form to sign, but he couldn’t read it in English. The ICE agent spoke Spanish, but would not translate the form, instead insisting that Amilcar sign it. If he didn’t, the agent said he would do it for him and Amilcar would spend a long time in jail. Amilcar refused to sign what he could not read.
At 10 p.m., he was transferred to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, a private center outside Providence, R.I. Cirilo and Luis went with him. The detainees were scattered across three other jails throughout New England: Suffolk County Jail in Boston, Cumberland County Jail in Maine and Franklin County Jail in Greenfield, Mass.
But first, some of the women spent the night in Hartford. There was no bed in the cold holding cell where Teresa and three other women were held, so they slept in the fetal position on the cement floor. There was a toilet, but no privacy from either the other women or the male guard walking by on patrol until another guard, a woman, brought them a sheet that they could hold up to block the view. Sitting on the floor and crying, the four cell-mates, though formerly strangers, hugged each other, as much for comfort as for warmth. Teresa thought she would be there for a long time.
***
Word of the raid broke in the local press in the late morning of June 6. By noon it was crawling across the news ticker in Times Square.
“This was a symbolic act of law enforcement by an agency that is not able to control its mission or how it executes its responsibilities. This was an act of intimidation,” Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said through clenched teeth, his face lighted by flashbulbs and the patchy afternoon sun poking through the shady canopy of Wooster Square Park at 4 p.m. In the heart of the city’s historic Italian-American neighborhood, he stood before a podium saddled with six microphones, flanked by community, religious and political, saying the immigration agents had “terrorized” Fair Haven.
While Matos was organizing the city’s response in the field, DeStefano was calling the New Haven police and Connecticut’s congressional delegation, asking them to help him get through to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He wanted to know what the federal agents were doing and why they were doing it, and he wanted it to stop.
***
By evening on June 6, Wishnie’s team of law students had compiled a working list of the 29 detainees, whose friends and relatives met with the lawyers at Father Manship’s church to confirm the identities of the detainees and to describe the raids.
The lawyers drew up bond motions for all the detainees, but they could not file them without an alien registration number, which they could not get without contacting the detainees. So they could not contact them without the number, and they could not get the number until they contacted them. It was a catch-22.
***
The morning after, on June 7, the guards brought Teresa Gonzalez Vala a ham sandwich, an apple and a small carton of milk. Teresa had been so anxious that she had forgotten to feel hunger; only now, as she wolfed down her breakfast, did she realize it was the first thing she had eaten in at least 30 hours. She didn’t know exactly what time it was because the cell had no window.
Then she was chained up again, taken down to the garage and put in a van. She didn’t know where she was going until she started noticing all the Massachusetts plates on the other cars and saw a big road sign for Boston.
At the Suffolk County Jail, medical examiners administered a blood test, gave Teresa a TB shot and took a urine sample. The results showed that she had developed a urinary infection, she thinks from holding it in and not being able to wipe the day before. They prescribed an antibiotic, but Teresa could not pick up the prescription without an ID, which she didn’t have. Until the lawyers intervened and got her the medicine three or four days later, she felt a burn whenever she had to urinate.
The law students repeatedly tried to request the alien registration numbers from ICE but were denied or ignored. So the students began calling every prison in New England in search of the detainees, until one law student phoned Wyatt, where several of them were being held, and the guard, unaware that ICE had been withholding the alien numbers, provided them.
Once all the detainees were transferred to prisons, they were able to call their families, who passed on their whereabouts to people at Junta, who passed it along to the lawyers. It took two to five days to locate the detainees, days when friends and families had no idea where they were being held or if they had already been deported. It was a full week before the last detainee had been identified.
***
Within the first week, four of the detainees posted bond, which was set at $15,000 for the 26 without criminal records and $25,000 for the three with criminal backgrounds. Most of the money was raised by extended families, and many employers also chipped in. John Lugo went door-to-door in Fair Haven asking for donations. One family brought $25,000 in small bills and coins to Father Manship, who counted it out in front of them, took it to the bank to get a cashier’s check and then drove to Hartford to post the bail.
After 10 days, Norma Franceschi drove to Hartford with Teresa’s bail money. She got to the office at 10 a.m. and waited until 4 p.m., when she was told that Teresa would be freed from the jail in Boston in one hour.
“I can’t get there in one hour,” Norma protested, knowing Boston was 100 miles away.
“Well, if you don’t pick her up, she will be homeless,” Norma was told.
Teresa was released but told if she loitered outside the jails she would be rearrested, so she started walking around the block, scared of running into officers and scared of the bleak neighborhood she was lost in.
Finally, strangers came in an old red minivan to pick up her and another woman. There had been another family in the Hartford office that was also going to the Suffolk jail, so Norma had asked if they would also pick up Teresa.
She got back to Atwater Street at 11 p.m. The other four who had been arrested were still in jail. But the rest of her family was there. They hugged and cried. But these were different tears than those Teresa had shed in jail. She thanked God she was home.
***
When DeStefano spoke to Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, a few days after the raid, he wanted assurance that any more raids planned for New Haven would be called off. Chertoff told the mayor he couldn’t declare New Haven, or anywhere else, an enforcement-free zone. DeStefano countered that the New Haven police are happy to help enforce the law where warrants are presented, but, the mayor said, that’s not what happened June 6.
But in a June 14 letter to Connecticut’s congressional representatives, Chertoff said ICE’s policy is not to conduct raids or enforce the law ad hoc. Rather, he said, the agency targets specific fugitives in specific locations. Although only five of the 29 arrested on June 6 were the targets of the raids, he said the others were arrested at the targeted locations.
Asking for identifying information or for a form of identification does not violate constitutional protections on search and seizure, he added, although detaining someone for further questioning requires “reasonable suspicion” that the person has committed a crime or is an illegal alien.
The ICE agents never entered a home without consent, Chertoff wrote. To ensure that the residents understood, he said each team included a Spanish-speaking officer. All the residents were brought into a common area for the officers’ safety, he said, which is standard law-enforcement procedure. Family members were provided the address and telephone number of the local ICE office to inquire about those arrested. The officers asked if there were any medical conditions, childcare issues or other humanitarian concerns, and they did not arrest children or leave any children alone without a parent or caregiver. In one instance, Chertoff said, officers stayed with an 11-year-old left home alone until the parents returned.
***
In August 2007, one of the detainees, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was deported, leaving his wife and two children in the United States. Five others opted for voluntary deportation, which lets them apply to re-enter after three years instead of 10; they left over the spring and summer of 2008. Twelve of the 29 cases are closed. Seventeen moved ahead with motions to suppress; the government won 11 of them, and the Yale Law School clinic is appealing. On the other six, the judge in Hartford, Michael Straus, shifted the burden of proof to the government to justify the arrests.
In January 2009, Straus called on the ICE agents who conducted the raid to testify. They have so far refused to appear in court. Their names have been redacted from all documents released to the public through Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Junta and Wishnie’s clinic at the Yale Law School.
This reporter’s calls to the Hartford ICE office were redirected to a press officer in Boston named Paula Grenier. Starting in April, she did not respond to a dozen attempts to request interviews, by e-mail and by voice messages on her office and cell phones. In late May, she replied, “ICE does not comment on matters pending before a court.” At that time, 17 of the 29 cases were still pending; requests for interviews about the other 12 cases that were not pending were ignored another 10 times. In July, her supervisor, Michael W. Gilhooly, repeated: “ICE does not comment on matters pending before a court.” An appeal to the press office in Washington was referred back to Grenier.
In June, Judge Straus ruled on four more of the detainees, saying their Fourth Amendment rights were “flagrantly” violated when agents entered their homes “without a warrant, probable cause, or consent.” The agents’ conduct, he wrote, was “unreasonable” and “unlawful.” He also impugned the ICE agents for refusing to testify and said the court could not give much weight to the officers’ scant affidavits, which left out relevant information and denied the opportunity for cross-examination. “This due process requires,” he wrote.
Two cases are still awaiting a decision, and the government is appealing the four most recent rulings in the immigrants’ favor. But at the same time the government has moved to close out the era of immigration enforcement that was marked by raids such as the one in New Haven. It is a dramatic shift, in policy and practice, from the tactics on display June 6, 2007.
The new model was demonstrated this past July with Los Angeles-based clothier American Apparel, which apparently employs some 1,800 illegal immigrants. But no agents stormed the factories or pulled people out of bed; instead, ICE sent the company a written notice that it could be fined and must fire undocumented workers.
***
But the damage from the old approach cannot be undone.
In the 10 days she was imprisoned, Teresa Gonzalez Vala lost both of her jobs, and it was a month before she could find another, mostly because she was afraid to leave the house. She had trouble sleeping and tried to distract herself by watching TV but couldn’t really concentrate even on that. She stayed inside for 10 days, and the first time she ventured outside to look for a job, she saw a white van and ran back home.
For more than a month while Teresa was in jail or out of work, she had no money to send back to her teenage daughter and ailing parents in Mexico. Without her support, her father couldn’t afford his diabetes medication. He died a month later, in August 2007.
***
The following October, Junta hosted a support group for 16 children who had been affected by the raids four months earlier. Sandra Trevino, Junta’s director and a social worker who specializes in children’s mental health, led the session. Eleven of the children had witnessed the raids, and the parents of two more had been arrested.
As Trevino evaluated them, she observed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. They had nightmares of knocks on the door, were afraid to sleep because they thought their parents wouldn’t be there in the morning, or were afraid to go to school because they thought their parents wouldn’t be there to pick them up at night. They lost sleep and lost their appetites.
At the workshop, the children participated in an art class, making collages of the ocean, using shells and real sand and little paper umbrellas, even though they had never seen a real beach. The session ended at the Yale Polo and Horse Stables, where Trevino took the children horseback riding, which they had never done before. Perhaps there, on the grassy fields of Yale’s sprawling athletic complex, the children could imagine themselves as Ivy League scholar-athletes in white helmets and breeches. Perhaps there, as Trevino hoped, the children could learn how to be gentle, because even a beast as big as a horse scares and recoils when startled by a sudden advance.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/city-news/2009/09/29/part-2-2-unmaking-haven/
Staff Reporter
Yale Daily News
September 29, 2009
When Teresa Gonzalez Vala was put in the unmarked white van outside her house on Atwater Street early on the morning of June 6, 2007, there were already four men and two women inside. They sat on two benches facing each other between the barred, tinted windows. She thought they would be deported right away.
Cirilo Sedeño Trujillo, too, thought they would be going straight back to Mexico. But he was not as scared, or at least he did not want to appear to be; he had been arrested once before, and he felt prepared for whatever was coming. Plus, he knew something the immigration officers did not, which was that Teresa’s boyfriend, Amilcar Soto Velazquez, had hidden his cell phone in his pocket before he was handcuffed.
When there were nine people inside, the ignition started smoothly and the van started to move, fast, with Teresa angling to see where they were going through the windshield, which was also the only light source. One right and two lefts later, the van stopped in front of a house on Peck Street.
Inside, on the second floor, a 34-year-old man was sleeping with his wife and children in the same room when they were awakened by a knock. He went into the living room half-dressed and asked, “Who is it?” in Spanish (his English being meager). “Police” was the reply, also in Spanish.
“Who are you looking for?” asked the resident. Someone named Chavez. There was no one named Chavez in the apartment, he answered.
He opened the door three or four inches and saw two policemen. One of them pushed the door open, and the resident stepped back to avoid being hit. The officer came inside and stationed himself in front of the door, outstretching his arms to block anyone from leaving, dropping them only momentarily to allow his fellow officer inside. The resident’s wife and son came running into the living room.
The second officer asked where the front door led. He left, and two more came: a male, armed, and a female. In English, they questioned the resident about his immigration status; his 12-year-old son translated, and the resident gave the officers his documentation. While one of the officers questioned him, another tried to open the door to his cousin’s room, but it was locked. The officer hit the door with his hand and feet, damaging the lock. But the cousin was not inside; he had left for work at 6 a.m. that morning.
The officer went into the bedroom of the resident’s live-in nephew, who was 22 and still in bed with his girlfriend. “Where is Chavez?” an agent yelled at them. The 22-year-old said he did not know anyone named Chavez. The agent ordered him and his girlfriend out of bed, handcuffed them and led them into the living room. His uncle, too, was handcuffed.
Officer Richard McCaffrey, who has worked in immigration enforcement for 15 years, was initially outside the house on Peck Street, then entered the back door and interacted with some of the occupants. At no time, he would later tell a court, did he see any unnecessary force or any officer enter without permission.
“There is another side here,” McCaffrey said in an interview at his office in Hartford. But, he added, the matter is still ongoing, and the litigation is still pending, and as a field officer he is not authorized to speak to the press at all. He said he regretted seeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement get beat up in the press without the agency being able to defend itself, to tell its side of the story.
“I would love to,” he said. “But I can’t.”
***
In all, seven people were arrested on Peck Street, four more of whom came into Teresa Gonzalez Vala’s van, making 13 inside. They were squeezed in, some of them literally sitting on top of each other. Teresa felt fortunate she didn’t have anyone on her lap because the pain in her bladder was intense as it was; she still had not had a chance to relieve herself.
The van left Peck Street, got on Interstate 95 and pulled into the parking lot of a closed tollbooth off exit 42 in West Haven, where a big white bus was waiting. The detainees from all the vans were being transferred to the bus to be taken to Hartford for processing. There was an agent, a man, who spoke Spanish, so Teresa told him, “If you don’t take me to a bathroom, I’m going to pee on the bus.” It was now 9:30 a.m.
The agent took her and another woman to a bathroom near the parking lot. He went into the bathroom with them, and Teresa asked him to take off her handcuffs so she could use the toilet. He refused. So the two women, complete strangers, went into the stall together and took turns: One pulled down the other’s pants, and she used the toilet, but with her hands tied in front of her she wasn’t able to wipe. Then the other pulled her pants back up, and then they switched. When they were finished, the officer didn’t let them wash their hands before bringing them back to the bus.
The men and women had to sit on different sides of the bus, separated by bars. Their handcuffs were removed, replaced instead with metal chains that tied their wrists, waists and legs. Cirilo Sedeño Trujillo, trying to keep up his spirits, joked to himself that the shackles made him walk like a penguin. As the bus took off, the chained passengers leaned with every turn, unable to brace themselves, unable even to scratch their noses.
But Amilcar — he has no idea how — could somehow reach the cell phone he had smuggled aboard, and he called Angelo Reyes and Norma Franceschi, the Fair Haven proprietors and community leaders. “I’m telling you, there are like 20 people here,” Amilcar told him. Norma and Angelo wanted to know who they were. The detainees started passing the phone around, bending over as much to hide the phone as to reach their ear while their hands were bound. Angelo, Norma and Father Jim Manship of St. Rose of Lima Church relayed the names to Community Services Administrator Kica Matos until the phone’s battery ran out.
As people started calling Matos back with information, she wanted to pass it along to Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who ran a clinic that works on immigration cases. His secretary told Matos he was out of town, so she left an emergency message. He called her back within an hour, and she told him what had happened and asked him to represent the detainees.
When the bus arrived at the garage beneath the Department of Removal Operations office in Hartford, the detainees were taken into the elevator and up to the top floor to be photographed and fingerprinted. Their hands were released from the chains but their legs remained tied.
One of the agents, a Puerto Rican, gave Amilcar a form to sign, but he couldn’t read it in English. The ICE agent spoke Spanish, but would not translate the form, instead insisting that Amilcar sign it. If he didn’t, the agent said he would do it for him and Amilcar would spend a long time in jail. Amilcar refused to sign what he could not read.
At 10 p.m., he was transferred to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, a private center outside Providence, R.I. Cirilo and Luis went with him. The detainees were scattered across three other jails throughout New England: Suffolk County Jail in Boston, Cumberland County Jail in Maine and Franklin County Jail in Greenfield, Mass.
But first, some of the women spent the night in Hartford. There was no bed in the cold holding cell where Teresa and three other women were held, so they slept in the fetal position on the cement floor. There was a toilet, but no privacy from either the other women or the male guard walking by on patrol until another guard, a woman, brought them a sheet that they could hold up to block the view. Sitting on the floor and crying, the four cell-mates, though formerly strangers, hugged each other, as much for comfort as for warmth. Teresa thought she would be there for a long time.
***
Word of the raid broke in the local press in the late morning of June 6. By noon it was crawling across the news ticker in Times Square.
“This was a symbolic act of law enforcement by an agency that is not able to control its mission or how it executes its responsibilities. This was an act of intimidation,” Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said through clenched teeth, his face lighted by flashbulbs and the patchy afternoon sun poking through the shady canopy of Wooster Square Park at 4 p.m. In the heart of the city’s historic Italian-American neighborhood, he stood before a podium saddled with six microphones, flanked by community, religious and political, saying the immigration agents had “terrorized” Fair Haven.
While Matos was organizing the city’s response in the field, DeStefano was calling the New Haven police and Connecticut’s congressional delegation, asking them to help him get through to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He wanted to know what the federal agents were doing and why they were doing it, and he wanted it to stop.
***
By evening on June 6, Wishnie’s team of law students had compiled a working list of the 29 detainees, whose friends and relatives met with the lawyers at Father Manship’s church to confirm the identities of the detainees and to describe the raids.
The lawyers drew up bond motions for all the detainees, but they could not file them without an alien registration number, which they could not get without contacting the detainees. So they could not contact them without the number, and they could not get the number until they contacted them. It was a catch-22.
***
The morning after, on June 7, the guards brought Teresa Gonzalez Vala a ham sandwich, an apple and a small carton of milk. Teresa had been so anxious that she had forgotten to feel hunger; only now, as she wolfed down her breakfast, did she realize it was the first thing she had eaten in at least 30 hours. She didn’t know exactly what time it was because the cell had no window.
Then she was chained up again, taken down to the garage and put in a van. She didn’t know where she was going until she started noticing all the Massachusetts plates on the other cars and saw a big road sign for Boston.
At the Suffolk County Jail, medical examiners administered a blood test, gave Teresa a TB shot and took a urine sample. The results showed that she had developed a urinary infection, she thinks from holding it in and not being able to wipe the day before. They prescribed an antibiotic, but Teresa could not pick up the prescription without an ID, which she didn’t have. Until the lawyers intervened and got her the medicine three or four days later, she felt a burn whenever she had to urinate.
The law students repeatedly tried to request the alien registration numbers from ICE but were denied or ignored. So the students began calling every prison in New England in search of the detainees, until one law student phoned Wyatt, where several of them were being held, and the guard, unaware that ICE had been withholding the alien numbers, provided them.
Once all the detainees were transferred to prisons, they were able to call their families, who passed on their whereabouts to people at Junta, who passed it along to the lawyers. It took two to five days to locate the detainees, days when friends and families had no idea where they were being held or if they had already been deported. It was a full week before the last detainee had been identified.
***
Within the first week, four of the detainees posted bond, which was set at $15,000 for the 26 without criminal records and $25,000 for the three with criminal backgrounds. Most of the money was raised by extended families, and many employers also chipped in. John Lugo went door-to-door in Fair Haven asking for donations. One family brought $25,000 in small bills and coins to Father Manship, who counted it out in front of them, took it to the bank to get a cashier’s check and then drove to Hartford to post the bail.
After 10 days, Norma Franceschi drove to Hartford with Teresa’s bail money. She got to the office at 10 a.m. and waited until 4 p.m., when she was told that Teresa would be freed from the jail in Boston in one hour.
“I can’t get there in one hour,” Norma protested, knowing Boston was 100 miles away.
“Well, if you don’t pick her up, she will be homeless,” Norma was told.
Teresa was released but told if she loitered outside the jails she would be rearrested, so she started walking around the block, scared of running into officers and scared of the bleak neighborhood she was lost in.
Finally, strangers came in an old red minivan to pick up her and another woman. There had been another family in the Hartford office that was also going to the Suffolk jail, so Norma had asked if they would also pick up Teresa.
She got back to Atwater Street at 11 p.m. The other four who had been arrested were still in jail. But the rest of her family was there. They hugged and cried. But these were different tears than those Teresa had shed in jail. She thanked God she was home.
***
When DeStefano spoke to Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, a few days after the raid, he wanted assurance that any more raids planned for New Haven would be called off. Chertoff told the mayor he couldn’t declare New Haven, or anywhere else, an enforcement-free zone. DeStefano countered that the New Haven police are happy to help enforce the law where warrants are presented, but, the mayor said, that’s not what happened June 6.
But in a June 14 letter to Connecticut’s congressional representatives, Chertoff said ICE’s policy is not to conduct raids or enforce the law ad hoc. Rather, he said, the agency targets specific fugitives in specific locations. Although only five of the 29 arrested on June 6 were the targets of the raids, he said the others were arrested at the targeted locations.
Asking for identifying information or for a form of identification does not violate constitutional protections on search and seizure, he added, although detaining someone for further questioning requires “reasonable suspicion” that the person has committed a crime or is an illegal alien.
The ICE agents never entered a home without consent, Chertoff wrote. To ensure that the residents understood, he said each team included a Spanish-speaking officer. All the residents were brought into a common area for the officers’ safety, he said, which is standard law-enforcement procedure. Family members were provided the address and telephone number of the local ICE office to inquire about those arrested. The officers asked if there were any medical conditions, childcare issues or other humanitarian concerns, and they did not arrest children or leave any children alone without a parent or caregiver. In one instance, Chertoff said, officers stayed with an 11-year-old left home alone until the parents returned.
***
In August 2007, one of the detainees, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was deported, leaving his wife and two children in the United States. Five others opted for voluntary deportation, which lets them apply to re-enter after three years instead of 10; they left over the spring and summer of 2008. Twelve of the 29 cases are closed. Seventeen moved ahead with motions to suppress; the government won 11 of them, and the Yale Law School clinic is appealing. On the other six, the judge in Hartford, Michael Straus, shifted the burden of proof to the government to justify the arrests.
In January 2009, Straus called on the ICE agents who conducted the raid to testify. They have so far refused to appear in court. Their names have been redacted from all documents released to the public through Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Junta and Wishnie’s clinic at the Yale Law School.
This reporter’s calls to the Hartford ICE office were redirected to a press officer in Boston named Paula Grenier. Starting in April, she did not respond to a dozen attempts to request interviews, by e-mail and by voice messages on her office and cell phones. In late May, she replied, “ICE does not comment on matters pending before a court.” At that time, 17 of the 29 cases were still pending; requests for interviews about the other 12 cases that were not pending were ignored another 10 times. In July, her supervisor, Michael W. Gilhooly, repeated: “ICE does not comment on matters pending before a court.” An appeal to the press office in Washington was referred back to Grenier.
In June, Judge Straus ruled on four more of the detainees, saying their Fourth Amendment rights were “flagrantly” violated when agents entered their homes “without a warrant, probable cause, or consent.” The agents’ conduct, he wrote, was “unreasonable” and “unlawful.” He also impugned the ICE agents for refusing to testify and said the court could not give much weight to the officers’ scant affidavits, which left out relevant information and denied the opportunity for cross-examination. “This due process requires,” he wrote.
Two cases are still awaiting a decision, and the government is appealing the four most recent rulings in the immigrants’ favor. But at the same time the government has moved to close out the era of immigration enforcement that was marked by raids such as the one in New Haven. It is a dramatic shift, in policy and practice, from the tactics on display June 6, 2007.
The new model was demonstrated this past July with Los Angeles-based clothier American Apparel, which apparently employs some 1,800 illegal immigrants. But no agents stormed the factories or pulled people out of bed; instead, ICE sent the company a written notice that it could be fined and must fire undocumented workers.
***
But the damage from the old approach cannot be undone.
In the 10 days she was imprisoned, Teresa Gonzalez Vala lost both of her jobs, and it was a month before she could find another, mostly because she was afraid to leave the house. She had trouble sleeping and tried to distract herself by watching TV but couldn’t really concentrate even on that. She stayed inside for 10 days, and the first time she ventured outside to look for a job, she saw a white van and ran back home.
For more than a month while Teresa was in jail or out of work, she had no money to send back to her teenage daughter and ailing parents in Mexico. Without her support, her father couldn’t afford his diabetes medication. He died a month later, in August 2007.
***
The following October, Junta hosted a support group for 16 children who had been affected by the raids four months earlier. Sandra Trevino, Junta’s director and a social worker who specializes in children’s mental health, led the session. Eleven of the children had witnessed the raids, and the parents of two more had been arrested.
As Trevino evaluated them, she observed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. They had nightmares of knocks on the door, were afraid to sleep because they thought their parents wouldn’t be there in the morning, or were afraid to go to school because they thought their parents wouldn’t be there to pick them up at night. They lost sleep and lost their appetites.
At the workshop, the children participated in an art class, making collages of the ocean, using shells and real sand and little paper umbrellas, even though they had never seen a real beach. The session ended at the Yale Polo and Horse Stables, where Trevino took the children horseback riding, which they had never done before. Perhaps there, on the grassy fields of Yale’s sprawling athletic complex, the children could imagine themselves as Ivy League scholar-athletes in white helmets and breeches. Perhaps there, as Trevino hoped, the children could learn how to be gentle, because even a beast as big as a horse scares and recoils when startled by a sudden advance.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/city-news/2009/09/29/part-2-2-unmaking-haven/
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