AZ-Homeland-security employee sues over immigration search
Homeland-security employee sues over immigration search
by Dennis Wagner - Jul. 26, 2009 12:00 AM
A Department of Homeland Security employee in Yuma is suing his own agency over an illegal search by immigration officers who he said mistakenly stormed his home in search of an undocumented immigrant.
Jimmy Slaughter, a K-9 handler at the U.S. border crossing in San Luis, said in District Court papers that he and his wife, Sheila, have lived in their home for more than a decade and did not know the woman sought by a half-dozen agents who came to his door with guns drawn.
"Is this the agency which protects our country?" Slaughter asked in an affidavit attached to the lawsuit. " . . . Now my neighbors are wondering or believe I am just another 'DIRTY COP!' I have served my country proudly for 23 years in the Marine Corps and six years as a Customs K-9 handler. I bleed Red, White and Blue."
The U.S. Attorney's Office has asked a judge to dismiss the complaint, arguing that agents left the house once they realized their mistake, so the Slaughters have no basis for a claim.
The Yuma incident was cited in a study released last week by the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic as an example of Fourth Amendment violations that some say became commonplace during immigration raids in 2006 and 2007.
The report said investigators with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency engaged in a "pattern of misconduct" by entering homes illegally, seizing innocent residents based on ethnicity and conducting unlawful searches.
The Slaughters' lawsuit accuses ICE of "unconscionable" conduct during the July 2008 raid. The suit stated agents entered a private residence without probable cause, looking for a woman whose mail had been incorrectly sent to the Slaughters' address for several years.
In the affidavit, Jimmy Slaughter claims he opened a screen door and asked to see legal papers, but agents barged past him "and told my wife to stand in the center of OUR living room. . . . Not once did anyone say they had a warrant."
Slaughter said agents backed off after he identified himself as a Homeland Security employee. But the affidavit ends by noting that an ICE supervisor was dismissive when he called to complain.
The Slaughters are seeking $1.5 million in damages.
Researchers at the Cardozo School of Law focus mostly on ICE raids along the East Coast but contend that the illegal searches occur nationwide.
They claim the justice system fails to protect the rights of low-income Hispanics who lack resources to fight for constitutional protections. Even those who defend themselves in immigration court are unlikely to succeed in suppressing evidence gained from unlawful searches, the report said.
During a forum in Phoenix last week, Jaya Vasandani, one of the report's authors, said ICE agents illegally entered homes in more than three-quarters of the incidents reviewed. Although residential raids are designed to target criminal aliens, she said, two-thirds of the arrestees had no felony record.
Vasandani added that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano already has taken "positive steps" to end practices that preceded the Obama administration.
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