A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of eight Latino New Yorkers, including two from Buffalo, accuses the Department of Homeland Security — and its component agencies U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — of illegally detaining New York residents based solely on their perceived ethnicity.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York by the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York and Covington & Burling LLP.
The two Buffalonians are identified in the lawsuit as a married couple — a 55-year-old Latina woman with initials RCR and a 63-year-old Latino man with initials FRP. Both residents have pending asylum applications and employment authorizations, the lawsuit said, and were arrested by immigration officers without a warrant in the Walmart parking lot in Cheektowaga on Jan. 24. They were released on bail three weeks later, on Feb. 18.
“ICE is profiling and arresting Black and Brown New Yorkers based solely on their appearance. This is an egregious violation of their civil rights, that has caused fear and panic to ripple throughout New York’s immigrant communities,” Meghna Philip, Director of the Special Litigation Unit at The Legal Aid Society, said in a press release. “This lawlessness must come to an end, and the federal government must be held accountable for its abuse of authority. Our clients, and all New Yorkers, deserve to go about their daily lives and routines without fear of arbitrary and discriminatory surveillance, detention, and family separation.”
The lawsuit lists the defendants as Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, among others.