Thread: NEW HAVEN FOI hearing to focus on police role in raid

FOI hearing to focus on state police role in raid

Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor
moleary@nhregister.com.
10/31/2007

http://www.nhregister.com

NEW HAVEN — One of the questions posed by attorneys for 29 people picked up in a raid by federal agents in June is the proper role of the state police in cases involving civil immigration enforcement.


The state Freedom of Information Commission will hear arguments today on whether state police should be compelled to release all records detailing their involvement in the June 6 raid in New Haven in which the 29 were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and charged with being here illegally.

Lawyers affiliated with a legal clinic at Yale Law School are defending some 21 of those individuals in deportation hearings before immigration Judge Michael Straus in Hartford, who is requesting submission of briefs in the case by Nov. 30.

They argue they need the information held by state police to determine whether ICE acted unconstitutionally by entering homes without consent or civil warrants or by racially profiling those arrested.

Heavily redacted material the state Department of Public Safety sent to the lawyers indicate there was no criminal aspect to the case, which is now closed.

A letter from Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, also noted the warrants used to pick up five of the 20 individuals show they were non-criminal fugitives, while the remaining people were arrested after being questioned about their civil immigration status.

In a brief prepared for the FOI hearing, Yale lawyers said state police are "legally pre-empted from making civil immigration arrests."

They further argue there is a strong public interest in disclosing the state police records for tax and oversight issues alone. "The FOIA request will help answer whether this was a justified use of state tax dollars," the brief says. Redacted records show three state police personnel worked overtime on the raid.

State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance saw no legal problem with state police officers accompanying federal ICE agents on a raid driven by federal civil immigration violations.

"We would be acting as state troopers under the guidance of state law, but that doesn’t preclude us from assisting agencies in whatever they are doing. Just the same way as we accompany the FBI, if they need help, or Secret Service, or any federal agency," Vance said.

Yale lawyers also question if the state police violated the supremacy clause to the U.S. Constitution by participating in civil immigration enforcement and said residents deserve to know "why their state police assisted a federal agency in what may well have been unlawful retaliatory enforcement actions against a Connecticut city."

They are trying to determine whether the raid was punishment for the city’s activism over the past several years "in favor of immigrants’ rights," including issuance of ID cards available to all residents, a policy that got final approval two days before the raid.

ICE officials have denied any connection to the ID and said the raid was planned as early as April. The earliest e-mail released by state police is dated April 30, although the contents are redacted.

By failing to notify local police of the raid until it was under way, Yale lawyers said this was a violation of ICE internal procedures, something that they said has caused dangerous situations in other jurisdictions, such as a recent raid in Nassau County New York.

New York officials accused the agents of being undisciplined and engaging in "inappropriate behavior" that frightened young children, complaints similar to those made by New Haven officials.

Former state Public Safety Commissioner Leonard Boyle rejected a request to deputize state troopers to act as federal immigration agents in 2005.

Whats a non-criminal fugitive ???

11/09/2007
FOI Commission says documents about immigration raid must be released
By Mary E. O'Leary , Register Topics Editor

HARTFORD - The state Freedom of Information Commission Thursday ruled unanimously in favor of Yale Law School lawyers who sought release of all the documents held by the state police surrounding the June 6 raid in New Haven by federal immigration agents.

The state police have 45 days in which to decide whether they will appeal the ruling, but already have agreed to put large portions of the documents on the record.

The lawyers, who represent two Latino advocacy groups, also maintain the information they have received so far advances their case that the raid was in retaliation for New Haven's Elm City ID card, which provides a form of identification for all residents, including illegal immigrants.

Paula Grenier, Northeast spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thursday reiterated the agency's previous comments that the June 6 raid "was a targeted enforcement action, not a random action. It was not retaliatory."

A total of 29 individuals were arrested, five on administrative warrants, and all were charged with being here illegally.

In a separate federal lawsuit, the Yale lawyers have charged ICE agents with violating constitutional protections by entering homes without warrants and making arrests based on racial profiling.

Michael Wishnie, a Yale Law School professor, said material they have been shown so far on ICE's operation plan for the raid confirms the agency failed to follow its rules when it did not notify New Haven police until the raid was under way.

"I think it is telling that they violated their own plan in this case and it suggests that they were treating this as something out of the ordinary," Wishnie said.

Wishnie said Julie Meyer, acting head of ICE, has said the raid was planned April 20 and approved May 4, while the Board of Aldermen gave final approval to the ID card on June 4.

But the attorney said there was national publicity about the card throughout April, including an op-ed in the New York Times on April 15, in support of it.

E-mails between state police and ICE show the original date of the raid was May 2, which was cancelled until June 6, but this conflicts with Meyer's letter in which she says the operation wasn't approved until May 4, Wishnie said.

ICE agents, in previously released e-mails, referred to the planned raid as a "fun time" and hoped state police could come and "play." Wishnie said the e-mails suggest "a disturbing sense that this is just a game ... suggest a real lack of understanding of the impact on families, on communities. There is a real space between what these officers think their job is and the consequences of their actions."

The commission rejected arguments by the state police attorney, who basically deferred to federal Freedom of Information authorities.

Assistant State Attorney Henri Alexandre also argued that unredacting all the e-mails, as well as ICE's operation plan for the raid, would put a chill on future cooperation between state and federal law enforcement officials.

But the four commissioners agreed with the Yale lawyers that previous FOI rulings and case law allowed release of similar material involving the FBI and it has not affected subsequent cooperation.

The ICE operation plan did not reveal any investigatory method not already publicly known, while neither state police, nor ICE, was involved in enforcement of a criminal case, according to the commission.


www.nhregister.com

Critics: Immigration Raid Retaliatory
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) —
An e-mail sent by local immigration officials to their agency head the day after the city adopted an ID program for illegal immigrants suggests that the timing of a raid soon thereafter was not coincidental, the city's mayor said.

Regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told agency Director Julie Myers in a June 5 e-mail that New Haven's Board of Aldermen had voted 25-1 the previous night to make the city the nation's first to offer illegal immigrants ID cards. City officials said the cards would help immigrants better integrate into mainstream culture by allowing them access to bank accounts and other services.

On June 6, ICE agents swept through the city and detained an estimated 30 illegal immigrants. Critics contend that the raid was retaliation for the city's adoption of the ID program — a charge the agency has steadfastly denied.

In the e-mail to Myers, obtained by The Associated Press through a federal Freedom of Information Act request, agents wrote that because of the recent vote, the raid would likely draw significant news coverage.

"They self-evidently were following what was happening in New Haven," Mayor John DeStefano said. "And at some level it had to have been a factor in their thinking to proceed with the raid. Otherwise why else would they have noted it?"

Yale law professor Michael Wishnie, who is representing those detained free of charge, said that while the e-mail to Myers doesn't prove retaliation, "it does suggest an awareness that doing the raid on June 6 would likely draw attention and they wanted to be prepared to respond to that expected attention. It certainly casts doubt on the statements that the raid had nothing to do with the ID program."

ICE officials have denied accusations that the raid was retaliatory, saying the raid was planned months in advance and that its timing was coincidental. Planning for the raid began in April, and it was initially to have been conducted in May, but records included with the e-mail show the date was pushed back until June for logistical reasons.

"This is something we typically do is to pass on information," said Paula Grenier, an agency spokeswoman.

But DeStefano pointed out that debate over the ID program also lasted months.


The Associated Press

E-mail raises suspicion of immigration raids’ timing
Victor Zapana
Staff Reporter
Published Monday, January 28, 2008

An e-mail acquired by the Associated Press on Saturday revealed that, one day before dozens of New Haven residents were arrested in federal immigrant raids last summer, local Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials notified the organization’s national director that the Board of Aldermen approved the Elm City Resident Card program.

The June 5 e-mail, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, also discloses that ICE — the largest arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which conducted the summer raids — expected the raids to garner substantial media attention. The raids took place in Fair Haven just two days after the Board of Aldermen passed the funds for the ID cards, which are available to residents regardless of immigration status.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. told the AP that the e-mail reinforces his belief that the timing of the June 6 arrests was not a coincidence and instead corresponded with the approval of the municipal ID program.

“It is really difficult to believe that the launch of our program has nothing to do with this,â€