NOTE: This editorial was written in Portuguese and translated to English via Google Translate. The translation is off due to the limitations of Google.
In my last editorial, I reported here as the Immigration Department gave a shot in the foot by arresting and trying unsuccessfully to deport an American citizen as if it were an undocumented immigrant. The failure cost taxpayers $ 400,000 in damages to Rennison Castillo.
Now is the time from the City of Danbury, CT, also pay for its mistake. It left last week the outcome of the process in which the city and the Department of Immigration were defendants. Mark Boughton struck a deal with justice by agreeing to pay $ 400,000 to 11 Ecuadorian immigrants. Other $ 250,000 will be paid by ICE, the Immigration Police.
The case, known as "The Danbury 11", has generated much controversy in the state after 11 day laborers, all undocumented immigrants from Ecuador, were arrested in a trap. A plainclothes policeman passed by an employer interested in hiring workers. Upon entering the car, they were taken to a place where they were arrested by ICE agents.
Mark Boughton, known for his anti-immigrant in the city, denied all along that the city knew of the operation, moreover, he had no knowledge of what was to happen.
The court documents proved that he lied. Boughton had made several requests to Immigration to make beats on the spot where migrants are seeking work. In addition, the driver of the car was a police officer.
On the brink of having to go to trial and spend even more money from municipal coffers, Boughton has accepted the agreement and pay compensation. It is noteworthy here that the immigrants' lawyers, the Yale Law School and later the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Washington DC, worked for free in the case.
The events serve to alert anti-immigrant, even being here without proper documents, the immigrants have rights. One prohibits any person from being discriminated against based on race, religion, race and marital status.
These people were arrested, not because they are looking for work, but simply because they were immigrants, particularly Latinos.
The stupidity of the mayor, backed by a group of extremists, put paid to all taxpayers of the city of Danbury.
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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
