Immigrant group in Va. sues ICE over ‘collateral arrests’ it calls unconstitutional

Advocates in Virginia filed a lawsuit Wednesday against four federal immigration agents over a practice known as “collateral arrests” that have helped boost the number of undocumented immigrants apprehended under President Trump’s administration.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, claims that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violated the constitutional rights of two men who are accused of being in the country illegally, but have been otherwise law-abiding, by detaining them without reasonable suspicion.

The ICE agents encountered Mynor Abdiel Tun-Cus and Jose Pajarito Saput in the parking lot of the Fairmont Gardens apartments as they were on their way to work and asked about another man who hadn't lived at the complex for about five years, according to the lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Justice Center in Northern Virginia, which seeks unspecified damages.

Unable to find their intended target, the ICE agents then took Tun-Cus and Saput into custody after determining they are undocumented immigrants, the lawsuit says. Tun-Cus and Saput have since been released but are awaiting federal deportation proceedings.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, director of the Justice Center’s Immigrant Advocacy Program, argued that such “collateral arrests” violate constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure that guarantee due process.

Under the Trump administration, arrests of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled to 5,441 during the first four months of the year, federal data in April showed.

In the Fairmont Gardens case, the ICE agents appeared indifferent to whether they found their intended target or not, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

“What they really wanted was to find some warm bodies, which is what they did,” he said.

An ICE spokesman declined to comment on the pending litigation, citing agency policy.

But in a statement, the agency said ICE agents may arrest anyone they find who is in the country illegally “as part of routine targeted enforcement operations.”

“ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy,” the statement said. “ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parents of Student Murdered by Maintenance Man Sue Apartment Complex

He pleaded guilty to murder late last year, now the case of a maintenance worker who killed a Blinn student is back in court. The parents of 20-year-old Jenna Verhaalen are suing the Bryan apartment complex where she was killed. Verhaalen was strangled at the Autumn Woods Apartments in 2008, by 27-year-old maintenance worker Jeremiah Rosser . The suit claims Autumn Woods ignored complaints made about Rosser. Specifically, a complaint they claim Jenna made to Rosser's boss, when he entered her apartment while she was in the shower. The suit alleges the complex's negligence led to Jenna's death. Attorneys for Autumn woods said management had no reason to believe Rosser was a risk. However, that's not what the complex's corporate office told News Three in 2008. Back then, a spokesperson said Jenna complained to the maintenance supervisor about Jeremiah Rosser , but never filed a complaint with the office. Rosser quit his job at Autumn Woods several day
Read more

“Blacklist” star Megan Boone lists West Village apartment for $2.4M

Image
Megan Boone and her apartment at 302 West 12th Street (credit: NBC and BKR Partners) Megan Boone, who  plays FBI agent Elizabeth Keen on NBC’s crime thriller “The Blacklist,” has just listed her condominium at 302 West 12th Street for $2.4 million, per city records. (credit: BKR Partners) Boone bought the apartment in 2014 for $1.85 million. According to the listing, with Brian Kanarek of BKR Partners, the 837-square-foot unit has one bedroom and one bathroom. It overlooks tiny Abingdon Square Park, and has a large fireplace, soundproof windows, high ceilings, a walk-in closet and access to the communal landscaped roof terrace . Kanarek did not immediately respond to request for comment. (credit: BKR Partners) Per city records, Boone and her husband, artist Dan Estabrook , bought a townhouse in Carroll Gardens in March 2016 in an off-market deal. In addition to starring on “Blacklist” with James Spader, Boone has also appeared on “Law & Order: LA,” “Blue Bloods” and the film “St
Read more

Charlotte affordable housing forum raises possible solutions

There’s a big demand for more affordable housing in Charlotte, where rents and home prices have shot up much faster than wages over the past few years. Many of the apartments being built now target more affluent renters, waitlists for housing vouchers are long and starter homes are snapped up almost immediately. So why aren’t developers building more affordable housing ? That was one of the main questions at a candidate education panel hosted by the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association on Friday, where about two dozen candidates for Charlotte City Council turned out to learn some of the basics on a complicated subject. “ Affordable housing is one of the topics you’ll talk about a lot,” Bryan Holladay, who supervises the group’s government affairs outreach , told the candidates. The subject is an alphabet soup of acronyms (like NOAH, or “ Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing ”) and overlapping terms and definitions. Sometimes when people say “ affordable housing ” they mean go
Read more