Thread: Day Laborers Receive $650,000 Record Settlement

Connecticut's "Danbury 11" Day Laborers Receive $650,000 Record Settlement

Published March 10, 2011

Both sides are claiming victory in the $650,000 settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group of day laborers who charged their September 2006 arrests in Danbury, Conn. were unlawful and based on racial profiling.

According to Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, which helped represent the men pro bono and issued a press release about the settlement, “This is the largest monetary settlement ever paid out to day laborers by any municipality in the country.â€

If they are illegal then the only thing they should have gotten was deportation. If the Law Enforcement officers were 287g certified then there should be no problem conducting a sting and truning the illegals over to ICE. I encourage all communities to do these stings and to push the illegals out of our labor force.

Ok...

One, Latino Fox is really starting to annoy me. They are beating the pro illegal alien drum every day.

Two, what is the name of this crappy insurer for Danbury, Conn that is conspicuously omitted from this article?

We need the name of the insurer and we need to warn cities and towns across America they need to drop that spineless company that plays political theater in court with illegal aliens and Yale.

W

They should have been deported that same day or processed for deportation. Nothing but a sting operation like is carried out all the time here in the USA for one crime or another,such as prostitution or theft. What do you think they will do with the money? Hire more "coyotes" to bring family members across the border? That or go back and retire in their homelands.

why are illegals even able to sue americans

Take the $650,000 and put it to more sweeps of illegals and their deportations.

Since when is it legal to not only be here illegally, but to also hang around on the road side soliciting illegally and getting paid under the table? Whoever this judge is, he needs to be fired because this is an illegal judgement!

At the risk of sounding like a troll, I’m not seeing in the article where the people arrested were illegal aliens or not. Did I miss something?

Originally Posted by ChiWatcher2

At the risk of sounding like a troll, I’m not seeing in the article where the people arrested were illegal aliens or not. Did I miss something?

it may not be in the article, but i do remember when this first came out all the stories did say they were illegally in the US

Originally Posted by ChiWatcher2

At the risk of sounding like a troll, I’m not seeing in the article where the people arrested were illegal aliens or not. Did I miss something?

Federal judge rules Danbury 11's immigration status irrelevant
Dirk Perrefort, Staff Writer
Published 09:47 a.m., Thursday, March 25, 2010

DANBURY -- A federal judge has ruled that the men known as the Danbury 11 not be required to divulge their immigration status as part of their civil rights lawsuit against the city.

While attorneys for the city claimed the status was "at the heart of the case," the judge cited previous case law when she ruled that handing over the information would have a "chilling" effect on other immigrants seeking to enforce their civil rights.

"We are gratified, but not surprised, because this order follows a long line of cases saying the courts should be open to everyone," said Rebecca Heller, a law student with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services organization at Yale Law School, which is representing the immigrants.

"People should not have to face harassment and deportation in order to vindicate their civil rights in federal court," Heller said.

The Danbury 11 is a group of day laborers who were arrested in Danbury and turned over to immigration agents in September 2006 during a sting operation involving local police officers.

The lawsuit filed by the day laborers claims that local police don't have the authority to enforce federal immigration law and that the officers used racial profiling when a local undercover officer picked them up at Kennedy Park.

(Use the link to view the article in it's entirety.)

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/F ... z1GFCHWfHj

Danbury 11 day laborer's appeal of deportation order rejected
Dirk Perrefort, Staff Writer
Published 10:34 p.m., Friday, July 23, 2010

DANBURY -- A federal immigration board has rejected the appeals of day laborers involved in the Danbury 11 case who were hoping to overturn a previous deportation order.

The Board of Immigration Appeals handed down its decisions recently for the eight remaining plaintiffs in the Danbury 11 civil rights case.

The Danbury 11 is a group of day laborers arrested in the city on Sept. 19, 2006 during a sting operation involving both local police and federal immigration agents.

The day laborers have alleged that they are the victims of racial profiling when they were picked up by an undercover city police officer at Kennedy Park downtown who turned them over to federal agents.

Decisions by the BIA were handed down for all eight of the remaining day laborers in the Danbury case.

In one of its decisions handed down July 19, the appeals board stated that because the "solicitation of day labor has a strong correlation to undocumented presence" the arresting officers had "reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts to believe that an immigration violation had occurred."

Dan Casagrande, an attorney representing the city in the Danbury 11 civil rights case, hailed the decision as dealing a "body blow" to the plaintiffs' case.

"The BIA's ruling is vindication of the actions by the city Police Department on Sept. 19, 2006," Casagrande said. "The decision shows that the police and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) acted properly, the day laborers' arrests were legal and non-discriminatory, and the day laborers' claims against Danbury are baseless."

The decisions by the BIA were delivered as part of immigration proceedings against the day laborers and are separate from the civil rights lawsuit filed against the city and the federal government by the Danbury 11.

Michael Wishnie, an attorney with the Yale Law School's Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic who is representing the day laborers, said he expects to appeal the decisions made by the BIA to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

While he disagrees with the BIA's findings, Wishnie said the board's decision is not likely to have an impact on the pending civil rights case.

A federal judge in the civil rights case had previously ruled, as part of a dismissal motion filed by the city, that the decisions made by the immigration court are not binding on the civil rights lawsuit, Wishnie said.

"An immigration judge, who is part of the U.S. Justice Department, doesn't control what happens in the civil rights case," Wishnie said.

He added that the BIA's decision seems to be "out of step" with the justice department's stance in the Arizona case, where officials with the department have filed a lawsuit attempting to strike down a new law in that state targeting illegal immigrants.

The BIA, in its decision in the Danbury 11 cases, states that the solicitation of day labor gave the arresting officers the probable cause necessary to believe that the men were illegal immigrants.

In the Arizona case however, the justice department is arguing that a provision of the new law that would make the solicitation of day labor illegal is unconstitutional.

"The BIA is out of step with the position the justice department has taken," Wishnie said.

Contact Dirk Perrefort

at dperrefort@newstimes.com

or at 203-731-3358.

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/D ... z1GFDPEITa