Rick Coshnear
The ACLU of Northern California filed suit in September in U.S. District Court in San Francisco to stop the unconstitutional seizure by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department of Latino residents who are handed over to immigration authorities for deportation.
The suit targets the County of Sonoma, Sheriff Bill Cogbill, Deputy Sheriff Morris E. Salkin, the branch of the Department of Homeland Security known as “ICE” (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and several of its agents. It was filed on behalf of Sonoma County’s Committee for Immigrant Rights and three young Latino men detained in Sonoma County in 2006 and 2007; Francisco Sanchez Lopez, Christyan Sonato Vega and Sammy Medel Moyado. Julia Harumi Mass of the ACLU-NC leads the suit with pro bono support by Latham & Watkins LLP. A key role in launching the suit was played by Sonoma Chapter Board Member Rick Coshnear, who is also active in the Committee for Immigrant Rights.
“Rick brought the issue to ACLU-NC and has been instrumental in bringing it together,” said Julia Harumi Mass. “He has participated in strategy discussions and provided important support to our legal research. He has been indispensable in terms of client contact and fact development.”
The suit alleges that the collaborative operations of the Sheriff supervised MAGNET unit (Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Team) and ICE have involved numerous instances of racial profiling and the detention of young Latino men without reasonable suspicion that they have committed any crime.
It alleges that the young men, once detained by a MAGNET officer, were held for questioning by an ICE agent without reasonable suspicion of being in violation of immigration law. Both the unwarranted initial detention and its unreasonable length are violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
Beyond the racial profiling of young Latino men, the collaborations involve the unlawful holding of the men at the Sonoma County jail without criminal charges. This is ostensibly done under the authority of Federal Regulations governing orders known as immigration detainers. That section only permits such detainers for people arrested for controlled substance violations. ICE agents have abused that authority by placing detainers on people held for traffic misdemeanors and other relatively petty offenses, as well as young Latinos held with no criminal charges at all. Sheriff Cogbill has honored these ICE detainers despite being notified that they have no statutory authority.
The Immigration and Nationality Act contains protections for people arrested without a warrant for violation of the civil law of illegal presence in the United States. These arrestees must be brought before an examining officer and informed of their rights and any allegations against them, and informed of their right to a bond determination without unnecessary delay. Using immigration detainers to hold people in jail for several days before transferring them to ICE custody undermines these protections - a tactic convenient for MAGNET and ICE but unlawful.
In addition to claims based on the Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the lawsuit brings claims based on due process and equal protection violations, and a claim of conspiracy on the part of the Sheriff, his agents in MAGNET, and ICE, to violate these rights. The conspiracy seeks to remove the young men from the community without the due process protections of criminal procedure.
It is much harder to fight violations of Fourth Amendment rights in the deportation courts than in the criminal courts, so the channeling of the young men into deportation, rather than state courts for crimes, avoids judicial review of police misconduct. When MAGNET and ICE detain a young man who is not a gang member or criminal in order to deport him, as they have done here, there is virtually no authority reviewing these seizures to put a stop to them.