Dan's Papers - October 5, 2007 - A Lawsuit About Some Raids In The Night

On September 20, fourteen Latinos living in Suffolk and Westchester Counties, six of which are East Hampton residents, filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit, which stems from several immigration raids performed early this year under ICE's "Operation Return to Sender" program, claims that the agency violated the Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights and details accusations of unreasonable and unlawful entry, unlawful detainment, psychological abuse and, in some cases, physical abuse and the destruction of personal property. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the international law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae are representing the Plaintiffs pro bono.

Five members of the Leon and Aguilar families, who live in a home on Copeces Lane in East Hampton, are lead Plaintiffs in the case. According to the lawsuit, on February 20 between 4:30 and 5 a.m., the ICE began pounding on their front door while they were asleep. Startled by the noise, one of the residents named Elena Leon woke and answered the door where she was terrified to find armed and uniformed ICE agents. The men proceeded to enter the home without showing a search warrant. During the raid, Elena and Andres Leon, Adriana Aguilar, her thirteen-year-old daughter Erika and five-year-old son Carson were all awakened and unlawfully detained by the ICE agents. All of the residents are United States citizens except Erika, whose citizenship application is currently pending, but she is a lawful permanent resident. The agents failed to explain to the aforementioned individuals their rights or allow them to contact a lawyer or police. Although the residents asked the agents repeatedly who they were, they never identified themselves or showed a warrant. Only after the agents gathered the Leon and Aguilar families in an office area where they blocked off the exits did they indicate that they were looking for a man named Wilson Garcia, Adriana's ex-husband who has not lived in the house since 2002. As the ICE left the home, the families claim the agents threatened that they would return. Adriana's divorce, her current marriage to Norman Aguilar and the purchase of the raided home with Norman are all on public record, which would have been easily available to the ICE if a proper investigation had been performed ahead of time.

In the belief that there was no search warrant issued by a judge for the raid, Foster Maer, a legal representative from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, noted that a Freedom of Information Act request was made for a copy of the warrant used, but documentation has yet to be received.

"The ICE has an administrator within the agency issue a warrant in their own self-interest," Maer explained. "It is not a search warrant issued by a judge. It is an inappropriate use of warrants." He added that the ICE's "Operation Return to Sender" program was initially created to detain illegal immigrants with deportation orders pending. "It was for those who had a criminal past, the bad apples so to speak. But now they are detaining and deporting those who did not commit a crime."

In other raids outlined in the lawsuit, ICE agents broke down doors, physically abused the victims and forced them to answer questions without allowing them to get dressed, while also looking for persons not currently residing in the home. "No family in this country should be forced to endure such treatment," said Cesar Perales, PRLDEF President and General Counsel.

In March 2007, an assessment of ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams was released by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General. The report indicates that since 2003 the goal of each Fugitive Operation Team has risen from 125 to 1,000 apprehended illegal aliens per year, allowing the teams to target non-criminal aliens as well as criminal. It also states that the database used by the teams to identify aliens targeted for arrest and detention is "inaccurate or incomplete." The report goes on to say that "having a large number of aliens to manage and few staff members to handle them made maintaining information difficult" and one supervisor stated that "the database has been neglected for the past 25 years," estimating that only 50% of the data is accurate. The report also explains that the agency has recently had to hire less-qualified persons because of hiring difficulties.

"The Fourth Amendment guarantees to each of us the sanctity and dignity of our homes," said Patrick J. Gennardo, a partner at the law firm and co-lead counsel for the Plaintiffs. "When we go to bed at night, we should rest assured that our children will not be wrested from their sleep by armed government officials without a judicially ordered warrant."

As in the case of the Leon/Aguilar families, "They should obviously do the proper investigation to make sure the person they are looking for is in the home. They shouldn't break down doors of homes where they may or may not find them," said Maer. "But we think a big goal of these raids is to find other illegal aliens, not necessarily those they are looking for." He suggested that agents approach the homes during the day, ask questions, assess property and utility records and survey the home, all before even requesting a search warrant, which would dramatically limit the possibility of an invasive knock on the door during pre-dawn hours.

Other lead Plantiffs in the case include an East Hampton woman named Nelly Amaya, whose home was also raided in the early hours of February 20 and a Riverhead man named Mario Patzan DeLeon whose rented room was raided in April.