Judge throws out ICE Aspen deportation case
by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Saturday, October 30, 2010


A Denver immigration judge recently threw out a deportation case against three allegedly undocumented foreign workers from Aspen, finding that federal immigration authorities illegally raided their Lazy Glen home in March of last year.

The raid on the three-story cabin, where nine adults and three children were staying, was conducted around 5:30 a.m. on March 24, 2009. Agents entered the house, woke up the residents in their bedrooms, yelling that there was an automobile accident outside and stating they were police. They then detained eight of the residents as illegal immigrants.

One man was immediately deported. The other seven have challenged the legality of the raid in immigration court, through Glenwood Springs attorney Ted Hess.

The raid was conducted by a Glenwood Springs-based U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) team, led by special agent Steve Turza.

In a 13-page ruling issued Oct. 21, Immigration Judge John W. Davis suppressed all collected evidence and dismissed the deportation cases against sisters Isabel and Citlali Guerrero, both housekeepers at the Aspen Square Condominium Hotel at the time of the raid, and Mario Alberto Soto-Gutierrez.

Judge Davis ruled that the warrantless, consentless raid was illegal.

Such rulings based on the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment are rare in immigration cases, and Hess said Friday that it was the first of its kind in Colorado.

Only if a search is found to be an “egregiousâ€