By Liz Robbins
November 20, 2017
Driving on Long Island in August, Denis Guerra Guerra was stopped by the police in Nassau County for failing to signal when changing lanes, a traffic infraction punishable by a ticket. Two weeks later, he was deported to El Salvador.
A police officer had taken his identification — a passport from El Salvador — and discovered a pending order of removal from immigration authorities.
On Monday, lawyers from the Central American Refugee Center, a Long Island immigrant legal services organization commonly known as Carecen, and the Hofstra Law Clinic filed suit against Nassau County in state Supreme Court, saying that the county police department was cooperating with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in ways that break state law.
Elise Damas, a lawyer for Carecen, announced the suit at a news conference at Hofstra University.
“Carecen seeks an ironclad assurance that Nassau County will act in accordance with New York State law, and not just with federal immigration policies,” she said. “Nassau County police are tasked with ensuring the safety of all communities countywide, a goal which cannot be achieved until immigrants feel protected.”
Peter L. Markowitz, a professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, called the lawsuit significant, saying: “New York State laws strictly define when it is O.K. and not O.K. for a state officer to make an arrest. And that does not include the authority to make civil immigration arrests.”
Mr. Guerra Guerra, 30, is not named in the lawsuit. He is a client of Ms. Damas’s, though, and she said he was the impetus for the suit. But since he is in El Salvador, the lead plaintiff in the case is “Jane Doe,” a 26-year-old undocumented immigrant living in Nassau County. The woman has had no interaction so far with local police but, the suit claims, is at risk because of county policies; the lawyers declined to name her because she is applying for asylum.
Lt. Richard LeBrun, a spokesman for the county police department, responded to the lawsuit by stating the department’s policy, which has been in effect since January 2007: “The Nassau County Police Department will not inquire into any person’s immigration status unless they are arrested for a crime. This includes the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses and anyone who calls the police seeking assistance.” The police may report the presence of an undocumented immigrant upon arrest, the policy says.
In August, Nassau’s acting police commissioner, Patrick J. Ryder, issued a statement saying that Mr. Guerra Guerra’s lack of a driver’s license and registration prompted further questions, which led to the discovery of a box cutter in his car. He was arrested on charges of possession of a weapon, but those charges were dropped at the precinct.
The Nassau County attorney, Carnell Foskey, said that he would not comment on “matters of litigation.”
The suit said the county’s policy was flawed on two fronts: first, that the Nassau police’s holding undocumented immigrants who are not accused of other crimes was unlawful, and second, that the county’s policy of honoring requests from ICE to hold immigrants for 48 hours at local jails, know as detainers, creates an environment of fear where immigrants would be reluctant to report crimes.
Ms. Damas said that the police department was afraid it would lose federal funding if the Trump administration considered the county unwilling to assist immigration authorities.
In fact, after the suit was filed on Monday, the Department of Justice announced it would award more than $98 million to police departments that promised to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The money would pay for additional officers.
“It’s the federal government coming in and getting involved in law enforcement in our community,” Ms. Damas said.
Donna Zak, the supervisor of the immigration unit at the Legal Aid Society on Long Island, said that before President Trump took office, “Someone who was brought in on a traffic infraction would not have been held for ICE.” Now, she said, “The ICE holds are growing in numbers.”
While there have been several federal challenges to local authorities cooperating with ICE detainers over time — and especially the last five years — a recent state court decision in Massachusetts offers a precedent for the New York case. The judge for the state Supreme Court determined that Massachusetts court officers could not arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer.
Asked about the Nassau suit, Christopher Lasch, a professor University of Denver Sturm College of Law, who studies detainer law, said, “It’s a sensible challenge because it goes straight to what is perhaps the easiest question for the state court to answer: does our state law give our officers the ability to make civil immigration arrests.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment