Judge: Immigration agents violated inmates’ rights

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that police departments violate the Constitution if they detain inmates at the request of immigration agents, marking the latest legal setback for plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to identify and deport people living in the country illegally.

In his order issued Wednesday, U. S. District Judge Andre Birotte Jr. found that a now-defunct policy of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office violated the constitutional rights of inmates who were kept in custody at the behest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Birotte’s order bolstered similar previous court rulings, which found that police cannot legally honor such detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The LASD officers have no authority to arrest individuals for civil immigration offenses, and thus, detaining individuals beyond their date for release violated the individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights,” Birotte wrote, referring to the Los Angeles sheriff’s office.

In the 48-page ruling, Birotte found that other old policies at the immigration agency and sheriff ’s office had run afoul of the Constitution as well.

Though many of the issues raised in the case have been addressed in previous cases or don’t apply to new policies at the immigration agency and sheriff’s office, Birotte’s order bars either agency from returning to old practices and will add to the growing set of cases impeding Trump’s plans to aggressively ramp up the number of deportations.

As part of the administration’s plans, immigration officials have increased the number of detainer requests the agency issues to local police departments. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions has tried to ratchet up pressure on local law enforcement agencies across the country that have refused to honor the detainer requests and cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in other ways.

In light of earlier court rulings, the sheriff’s office has not delayed releasing inmates on the immigration agency’s behalf since 2014, and today, none of California’s 54 sheriffs is willing to fulfill the agency’s requests. Police in other parts of the country, however, continue to hold inmates to allow immigration agents time to take them into federal custody for possible deportation.

As part of Birotte’s order, “thousands” of people who were improperly held in Los Angeles County jails on immigration detainers may be entitled to monetary awards, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. It is unknown how many people would be eligible.

“For years, the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department … callously denied immigrants constitutional protections that universally apply to all other jail detainees — unjustifiably holding them without cause as prisoners,” said Lindsay Battles, one of the attorneys involved in the case. “This decision holds law enforcement agencies accountable for their anti-immigrant abuse of their authority.”

Along with his finding that police cannot legally hold people in custody at the immigration agency’s request, Birrotte ruled on other aspects of the detainer process.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example, was wrong to issue detainers for people who were born overseas but were not found in the databases federal agents rely on when determining a person’s immigration status. Immigration officials said in court filings that the agency stopped the practice in June 2015.