I’ve written a lot about raids in the past year – from Postville to Laurel, we’ve seen how the enforcement-only approach of the Bush era has torn apart communities and violated basic civil and human rights.
Last week, in a rare moment of justice, an immigration court Judge ruled that immigrants’ rights were violated during the raid on New Haven, Connecticut in 2007. From the AP:
Immigration Judge Michael Straus, in decisions last week, said the ICE agents went into the immigrants’ homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants, whose names were not released. ICE officials claim all four are from Mexico, but all four cited their Fifth Amendment rights in refusing to say what country they are from.
Two of the four immigrants lived in one home, and two lived in a second home. They said in affidavits that agents barged into both homes after residents had opened their doors only a little. The agents went into both homes looking for specific illegal immigrants on a “target list,” who weren’t found, court documents say.
Let’s hope the ruling is a sign of things to come.
