(Updated with text of lawsuit.) Ten New Haven residents are filing suit against the federal agents behind the 2007 New Haven immigration raids. They claim that their arrests were an unlawful retaliation for the city’s immigrant-friendly ID card program.
When Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers swept into town on June 6, 2007, they rounded up 29 immigrants who had allegedly entered the country illegally.
In June, Yale attorneys successfully derailed deportation orders against five of those arrested, since ICE agents had entered their homes unconstitutionally.
Now, the Yale Law School students are going on the offensive. On Wednesday they’ll file a lawsuit on behalf of 10 of the people arrested in 2007. The suit will argue that ICE agents violated their constitutional rights, that ICE supervisors orchestrated the raids as retaliation for the creation of the Elm City ID card, and that high-level ICE officials failed to supervise their staff.
Read the lawsuit here.
In a statement released by the Yale lawyers, one of the plaintiffs describes his experience 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. ‘I was terrified and humiliated. We are bringing this suit, because we refuse to let our families and community live in fear.’”
There are three different types of defendants, said Valarie Kaur, a Yale student working on the case.
The first level is the ICE agents who “directly participated in the raids.” These agents violated Fourth Amendment rights by entering homes without warrants and without consent, Kaur said.
The second level of defendant is a group of ICE officials in Hartford who were “mobilizing against” New Haven because of the Elm City identity cards, Kaur said. It’s no coincidence that the raids were conducted just 36 hours after the ID card program started, the lawyers argue.
Evidence supporting the retaliation charge comes from ICE emails gathered after a Freedom of Information Act request by local Latino-advocacy groups Unidad Latino En Accion and Junta For Progressive Action, Kaur said. The memos show that ICE officials were closely monitoring the progress of the ID card program, criticizing it, and planning to try to stop it, she said. Further, the emails also demonstrate that the officials were “trying to cover up collaboration” as they went.
The third level of defendants is a group of senior ICE officials. They were pushing arrest quotas for immigrants “without adequate supervision and training to prevent constitutional violations,” Kaur said.
The three levels of defendants “all share responsibility for the suffering” of the individuals who were arrested in 2007, Kaur said.
The plaintiffs seek damages and declaratory relief.
In an email message, ICE spokesperson Paula Grenier wrote, “ICE does not comment on matters pending before a court.”