Portland, Ore.– U.S. immigration officials in Oregon must stop detaining people without warrants unless there is a possibility of escape, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubay issued a preliminary injunction in a proposed class action lawsuit targeting the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of detaining immigrants they encounter while conducting extensive enforcement operations — which critics have described as “arrest first, excuse later.”
The department, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately comment in response to a request from The Associated Press.
Similar procedures, including immigration agents Entering private property without a warrant A court ruling has alarmed civil rights groups across the country amid President Donald Trump Mass deportation efforts
Courts in Colorado and Washington, D.C., have issued rulings like Kasubai’s, which the government has appealed.
In a memo last week, Todd Lyons, the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stressed that agents should not make warrantless arrests. Administrative detention order Issued by a supervisor unless they develop probable cause to believe that the person is in the United States illegally and is likely to flee the scene before obtaining a warrant.
But the judge heard evidence that agents in Oregon arrested people in immigration checks without such warrants or a determination of the possibility of flight.
The day-long hearing included testimony from one of the plaintiffs, Victor Cruz Gamez, a 56-year-old grandfather who has lived in the United States since 1999. He told the court that he had been arrested and detained in prison. Immigration detention facility for three weeks even though he had a valid work permit and pending visa application.
Cruz-Gamez testified that he was driving home from work in October when he was stopped by immigration agents. Despite showing his driver’s license and work permit, he was arrested and taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland before being sent to an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington. He added that after three weeks there, he was scheduled to be deported until a lawyer could secure his release.
He cried as he recounted how the arrest affected his family, especially his wife. He said through a Spanish translator that once he returned home, they did not open the door for three weeks out of fear, and one of his grandchildren did not want to go to school.
Afterward, a federal government lawyer told Cruz-Gamez that he was sorry for what he went through and the impact it had on them.
Casubay said the actions of agents in Oregon — including pointing weapons at people while they were being detained on civil immigration violations — were “violent and brutal,” and he expressed concern about the department denying due process to those swept up in immigration raids.
“Due process requires those with great power to exercise great restraint,” he said. “This is the cornerstone of a democratic republic founded on this great Constitution. I think we are losing that.”
The lawsuit was filed by the nonprofit law firm Innovation Law Lab, whose CEO, Stephen Manning, said he was confident the case would be “a catalyst for change here in Oregon.”
“This is the essence of this issue: asking the government to follow the law,” he said during the hearing.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the case proceeds.
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Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed.