News & Commentary

In an important victory against overzealous and unconstitutional immigration enforcement practices, a federal appeals court today rejected efforts by immigration officials to be dismissed from an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of a North Providence resident who was locked up at the ACI in 2009 as a deportable “alien” even though she is a U.S. citizen. Today’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirms a decision issued last year that there are critical constitutional limits on the power of immigration and corrections officials to detain people while investigating their immigration status. Ada Morales, who was born in Guatemala and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1995, was taken into custody on criminal charges in May 2009. While she was being held at the ACI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials lodged an “immigration detainer” against her – apparently assuming, based on her race and her place of birth, that she was a deportable non-citizen. A judge had ordered Ms. Morales released, but the R.I. Department of Corrections held her in custody for an additional 24 hours solely because of the ICE detainer, and even after she repeatedly told officials she was a U.S. citizen and offered to show them her naturalization certificate and passport. In 2012, the ACLU sued on her behalf, arguing that the detention violated her constitutional rights to equal protection of the law and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. In an opinion issued last year, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. agreed that Morales had raised viable claims, holding, among other things, that she had “set forth plausible allegations that she was unconstitutionally detained solely based on her national origin and Hispanic last name.” The court also concluded that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t permit ICE or state officials to hold someone in jail merely to investigate their immigration status; an arrest must be based on probable cause, not mere investigative interest. Three of the ICE officials who were sued for being responsible for Morales’s detention appealed that ruling, arguing that they should be dismissed from the suit because at the time of her detention in 2009, the law was not clearly established that probable cause was required in order to issue a detainer against an alleged undocumented immigrant. The appellate court unanimously disagreed today, calling that argument an “unprecedented proposition … contradicted by longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Rather, the court held, “the law was clearly established” in 2009 that probable cause was required to detain Morales pursuant to an immigration detainer. The defendants also challenged the lower court’s holding that Morales had plausibly alleged that she was detained because of her national origin. The appellate court dismissed that portion of the appeal, concluding it was without jurisdiction to consider it. ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown remarked: “The unseemly eagerness of some immigration officials to deport people led to an innocent person’s wrongful imprisonment. I am hopeful that this unambiguous ruling will encourage real reform of ICE’s immigration detainer practices.” National ACLU attorney Kate Desormeau added: “The Court has affirmed that immigration officials, just like other law enforcement officials, must comply with the Fourth Amendment.  The Constitution does not permit ICE to lock people up simply to buy more time to investigate them.” Besides Desormeau, the suit is being handled by Omar Jadwat, senior staff attorney with the National ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Lena Graber, volunteer attorney for the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers’ Guild.  At the district court, Morales is also represented by Mark Ford, Margaret O’Grady, Angela Yoon, and Laura Donovan of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

By Johanna Kaiser, Development & Communications Associate You’ll often hear about our work in the courts when we file a lawsuit, settle a case, or receive an important ruling from the court. What you often don’t hear about everything that happens in between the filing of a lawsuit and its resolution. With that in mind, we wanted to offer an update on two of the lawsuits we filed this year. In our case Richer v. Parmelee, we've filed a brief asking for partial summary judgment in the case.

By Hillary Davis, Policy Associate

By Hillary Davis, policy associate

The two pitbulls seized in October by North Kingstown officials despite the owner’s compliance with all relevant state laws will be returned home while the American Civil Liberties Union court case challenging the seizure of the dogs moves forward. A Washington County Superior Court judge Friday found that the ACLU had a likelihood of success its claim that the state law establishing detailed procedures for dealing with "vicious dogs" preempts a local ordinance barring any “vicious” dog from being housed within a mile of a school or day-care facility. The judge therefore ordered the return of the dogs, Balou and Ozzy, to Kristy Miserendino and her family. The ACLU filed the case, Defenders of Animals v. Sunderland, after town officials seized the dogs under the local residence restriction despite a ruling by a state panel that the family could keep the dogs if they took specified precautionary measures. A Town official informed the Miserendinos of the residency restriction only after they had decided not to appeal the hearing panel’s decision. The dogs have been held at the town shelter, which, the lawsuit points out, is also within a mile of a school.

The ACLU today filed a lawsuit in federal district court on behalf of a North Smithfield resident, seeking the return of lawfully possessed weapons that were seized from him over six years ago by the local police department and which the department still refuses to return to him. The lawsuit, filed by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Thomas W. Lyons on behalf of Jason Richer, argues that the North Smithfield Police Department has violated his right to due process and his right to keep and bear arms by retaining his property without just cause. The ACLU successfully filed a similar lawsuit against the Cranston Police Department three years ago.

In April of 2010, we sued the Division of Motor Vehicles for telling thousands of motorists that their license and registration were to be suspended due to unpaid fines without providing any information about the alleged offense, the penalty, or even the date that the offense supposedly took place.

In response to a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, the Division of Motor Vehicles agreed to the entry of a court order today that will require the agency to first adopt regulations through a public process before using a new database designed to identify and possibly take action against uninsured drivers.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island filed a lawsuit today against the Division of Motor Vehicles for implementing a database designed to identify uninsured motorists without first establishing any regulations to prevent the improper disclosure of drivers’ personal information, avoid mistaken registration revocations, or to otherwise ensure that the program is properly administered by the private out-of-state company contracted to run the program.