Legal News

114 employees file for damages over ICE raids

By Jason Siegel

Over a hundred employees at a print cartridge manufacturer filed for damages against the federal government. They claim they were unlawfully detained in a raid by immigration agents, the Daily News reported.

Los Angeles civil rights attorney Peter Schey is representing the 114 workers, all legal citizens, who are seeking $5,000 apiece in complaints against the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the February raid.

Gun-wielding immigration agents aggressively treated the legal citizens like suspected criminals for hours, without reason to do so -- violating the 4th amendment, Schey told the KPCC Public Radio. (LISTEN)

This case is different from the 1984 INS v. Delgado decision is because there wasn't any group detention of the workers in Delgado and made questioning voluntary, Schey told KPCC. "What we have seen since that operation is something different....herding [the workers] to common areas, instructing them to line up in different places, whether to stand or sit, not permitting to use their cell phones...go to their lockers...their cars."

ICE agents kept employees in the building while the arrested eight people on criminal charges and 130 others for immigration violations.

"It's very important to remind ICE and Department of Homeland Security that the Constitution is at play and people have rights," John Ayala, who chairs the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.'s Southern California chapter, told the Los Angeles Times. "They should go in there looking for those eight workers. They shouldn't go in there on a fishing expedition."

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 28, 2008 (boomark / email).