Judge Says Case Against Immigration Officials in New Haven Raids Can Proceed

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Judge Says Case Against Immigration Officials in New Haven Raids Can Proceed
A federal judge ruled late Thursday that the former chief of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and other senior officials could be held liable in a lawsuit claiming that federal officers violated the constitutional rights of illegal immigrants arrested in predawn raids three years ago in New Haven. A trial and a final ruling are still months away, but Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the United States District Court in Bridgeport ruled that the civil rights lawsuit could move forward, handing a significant victory to advocates of immigrant rights in a case that could have national implications.
The arrests drew wide attention, in part because New Haven officials had been adopting policies to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows. The raids began on June 6, 2007, two days after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved a plan to offer identification cards to all city residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants.
Judge Underhill ruled that the lawyers representing 11 of the arrested immigrants had presented enough evidence that senior federal officials created an environment “under which constitutional violations occurred.” He also ruled that the roughly two dozen arresting officers could be held as liable as well.
The government and individual defendants, including Julie L. Myers, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sought to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that senior officials were too far removed from the raids to be held responsible and that immigration agents could not be sued.
Judge Underhill disagreed with most of their arguments and allowed the core elements of the case to proceed.
In the New Haven raids, part of a national crackdown called “Operation Return to Sender,” federal immigration officers split into four teams and arrested 32 immigrants in their homes. The immigrants, most of whom were Mexican, were sent to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.
The arrests shocked many in New Haven, including Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who had supported efforts to issue city identification cards to immigrants, said he believed the raids were retaliation. The lawsuit claims they were meant to punish the city.
Federal officials have denied that. In his ruling, Judge Underhill mentioned the accusations about the timing of the raids but did not say whether he thought they had merit.
More than two dozen lawsuits have arisen from the New Haven raids, but the civil rights case, filed by the Workers and Immigrants Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, has the highest profile — largely because of its strategy of holding senior officials responsible.
“The government has argued that ICE is immune from suits like this,” said Muneer Ahmad, the supervising lawyer on the case, about the immigration agency. “This is the beginning of a process of accountability to bring ICE as a law enforcement agency within the fold of every other federal agency.”
A spokesman for the immigration agency declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.
Federal officials have argued that the raids were a legitimate part of a national effort to clear a backlog of “fugitive aliens,” immigrants with an outstanding deportation order. The officials have maintained that they had consent to enter the homes of immigrants they suspected were undocumented — the clinic’s lawyers dispute that — and that the operations had been conducted properly.
The lawsuit contends that the federal agents arrested people without inquiring into their immigration status, informing them of their rights or explaining why they were being seized. Of the 32 immigrants arrested, five had deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
The advocacy clinic and lawyers from Cleary Gottlieb, the pro bono co-counsel, aim to hold the arresting officers responsible, as well as Ms. Myers and John Torres, another senior immigration official, among others. Ms. Myers left the agency in 2008; she and the Department of Justice lawyers representing her declined to comment. Mr. Torres did not respond to e-mails or phone messages.
The lawyers contend that Mr. Torres shifted the agency’s focus from arresting fugitives to people who were not criminals and posed no danger to the public. They also contend that he had created a quota system that called for Fugitive Operations Teams to make 1,000 arrests a year, half of which could be bystanders encountered during investigations. Ms. Myers had approved the quotas.
The clinic’s lawyers say the quota system encouraged officers to violate the rights of illegal immigrants. Judge Underhill wrote that the lawyers had provided enough evidence for holding the officials liable “because their actions imposing intense pressure to make arrests, allowing bystander arrests, and providing inadequate training created a policy under which violations occurred.”
Judge Underhill ruled that there was not enough evidence to include at least three defendants mentioned in the lawsuit. He dismissed claims that the immigrants were forced to sign documents that they did not fully understand and were denied access to legal counsel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/ny...er=rss&emc=rss