Challenge in Connecticut Over Immigrants’ Arrest

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/nyreg ... labor.html
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: September 26, 2007

Nine day laborers are expected to file a federal lawsuit today challenging the legality of a sting operation in Danbury, Conn., last year that led to their arrest on immigration charges.

Those plaintiffs, and a tenth man whose traffic stop for a noisy muffler resulted in his deportation to Ecuador, contend that their arrests were illegal and part of a campaign based on racial profiling. They also say that the city of Danbury, its mayor, Mark D. Boughton, and its police chief acted to enforce federal immigration law without authority.

At a time when towns across the country are wrestling with how to deal with illegal immigrant residents, and when day laborers are often a flash point of conflict, the lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges to local crackdowns.

According to the complaint, on Sept. 19, 2006, a Danbury police officer posing as a contractor drove an unmarked van belonging to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to a park in downtown Danbury where day laborers, many from Ecuador, gather. Pretending to offer $11 an hour to demolish a fence, the officer transported 11 would-be workers to a fenced-in lot where they were arrested, handed over to federal immigration agents and eventually placed in deportation proceedings.

Mr. Boughton said yesterday that the local police had only provided “logistical supportâ€