AP
By John Seewer
June 16, 2015
Two
groups that work with Hispanics in Ohio are taking a racial profiling
lawsuit against the U.S. Border Patrol before a judge, accusing agents
of targeting and detaining
Hispanics based on their ethnicity.
The trial is scheduled to get underway Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Toledo.
The
lawsuit brought by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and the
Immigrant Worker Project said border patrol logs show a disproportionate
number of stops involving Hispanics.
U.S.
Justice Department lawyers have denied those claims of discrimination
and said in court documents that all of the stops were legal. The
government also argued that
the analysis of border patrol logs was flawed and could not be used to
show racial profiling.
Attorneys
for the two groups said the incidents with border agents began in 2009
after the agency opened an office in Port Clinton to patrol along Lake
Erie near the border
with Canada.
Several
people plan to testify about seven instances where agents lacked the
needed suspicion or were motivated by race to stop someone, court
documents said.
The encounters happened in Huron, Norwalk, Sandusky, Toledo, and on the Ohio Turnpike, attorneys for the groups said.
The
groups want the judge to declare that the border patrol’s policies and
practices violated the U.S. Constitution and to stop the agents from
relying on race as part
of their enforcement activities.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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