Thread: Suit challenges Arizona's interception of money transfers

Published: 10.18.2006

Suit challenges Arizona's interception of money transfers
By PAUL DAVENPORT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOENIX - An immigrant-rights group sued Arizona's Attorney General on Wednesday, saying the lives and property of innocent people are unfairly snared by a state program intended to combat migrant and drug smuggling by intercepting money transfers.

The suit filed by attorneys for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on behalf of a class of plaintiffs said the warrants authorizing the interceptions are too broad and snare innocent people in violation of constitutional protections on search and seizure. Rights for legal due process also are violated because notices outlining ways to challenge the seizures aren't being posted, according to the suit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union has already gone to court separately to fight aspects of the program run by the Arizona Attorney General. It recently was expanded to include transfers of $500 or more sent to specific places in the northern Mexican state of Sonora because, state officials said, smugglers had responded to seizures in Arizona by rerouting the transfers to south of the border.

A federal judge last month rebuffed Western Union's challenge to the expanded program, but a state judge later temporarily halted the program pending an Oct. 30 hearing.

Attorney General Terry Goddard's office oversees the 5-year-old program, which is intended to deprive smugglers of the money that is "the core motive" for their operations.

Along with being a major location of drug smuggling, Arizona is the nation's busiest illegal crossing point for illegal immigrants coming into the United States from Mexico.

Authorities say illegal immigrants typically won't carry large amounts of cash and frequently arrange to have relatives or friends send money to "coyotes" for payment once crossings are made.

The lawsuit challenges approximately $12 million intercepted in 11,000 transfers during the past two years.

Goddard's office said the seizure warrants have led to hundreds of arrests of smugglers and drug dealers and "played a role" in the forfeiture of more than $17 million in transit as well as numerous businesses.

Coalition Executive Director Josh Hoyt acknowledged that some of the transfers are for illicit purposes. But he said the group's investigation shows the procedures also snag "little people" who mostly are just trying to send money to relatives.

"He's taking a lot of innocent people along with the guilty," Hoyt said of Goddard.

Coalition representatives met last week with Goddard in Phoenix but were unable to resolve their differences, Hoyt said.

The lawsuit, which names Goddard and a top aide as defendants, asks the court to block use of the seizure warrants and order restitution for seized transfers and payment of legal fees and costs.

Goddard said in a statement that the new legal challenge would not deter efforts to "disrupt human smuggling, secure Arizona's border and make our neighborhoods safer."

His office's briefing paper said the procedures used to screen cases are like Customs inspections or police roadblocks to catch drunken drivers and "are national models of due process."

"The law enforcement goal in each operation is to determine which are the subject cases as quickly as possible and send the others on their way with little disruption," according to the briefing paper.

However, one of three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, Illinois truck driver Javier Torres, said he lost $1,000 that he tried to send to a friend in Arizona to pay for a car that Torres said he quickly resold for profit.

Torres, a Burbank, Ill., resident who said he has been a legal resident of the United States since 1994, said Arizona authorities declined to return the money when he couldn't provide specific documents.

"I never had the car in my name," Torres said by telephone from the coalition's office in Chicago. "They told me 'when you have those documents you can call me back,'"

The suit's other two named plaintiffs are Alma Santiago, of Charlotte, N.C., and Lia Rivadeneyra of Daly City, Calif.

Goddard's statement noted that the lawsuit involved transfers handled by Western Union and said the lawsuit "was really about protecting corporate profits."

Matt Piers, a Chicago attorney representing the immigrant coalition, said the group had received information from Western Union regarding the transfers and previously had accepted unrestricted grants from the Englewood, Colo.-based company but was not acting on its behalf.

The suit said money was seized in transfers from residents of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/151774

However, one of three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, Illinois truck driver Javier Torres, said he lost $1,000 that he tried to send to a friend in Arizona to pay for a car that Torres said he quickly resold for profit.

Torres has a real good friend in AZ that wont help him get his money back. Sounds fishy to me?

Dixie

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