Judge cites Eugene detainee’s testimony in finding ICE not compliant with court order

Federal immigration officers must provide video from body-worn cameras of arrests made starting Sept. 1 to legal advocates, a judge ordered Monday, Nov. 2.

The order cited testimony from a Eugene man arrested July 3 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with testimony from three others arrested by ICE.

Portland-based Innovation Law Lab previously alleged in court documents that Department of Homeland Security officials “have misused and abused the warrantless arrest” in an effort to meet “detention quotas.”

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction in February limiting warrantless arrests. The injunction required federal immigration enforcement officers to assess a person’s risk of fleeing before making warrantless arrests.

The Eugene man was detained, but later released, by ICE. He testified as part of a two-day September evidentiary hearing in Portland about whether federal immigration officers have followed Kasubhai’s February order.

Kasubhai found errors made by ICE officers ranging “from typos to outright fabrications,” he wrote in Monday’s judicial opinion.

The judge — who previously has been critical of ICE — ruled that ICE officers “have continued to conduct warrantless arrests without adequately making and documenting the requisite particularized finding of escape risk,” imposing the requirement to hand over body-worn camera footage and more documentation of arrests than previously required.

Eugene man’s testimony

Kasubhai’s 50-page order cited testimony from the Eugene man, identified in court documents only as H-F-M-J. The judge’s order described him as a landscaper and dishwasher. Lookout Eugene-Springfield previously reported H-F-M-J came to the United States from Mexico, based on a statement from an ICE spokesperson.

H-F-M-J testified they gave a ride to a co-worker the morning of July 3 and, while driving, noticing “three dark-colored vehicles driving behind him,” Kasubhai said in the order.

“When he pulled into his workplace parking lot, the vehicles surrounded him. Three ICE officers approached H-F-M-J’s car wearing masks. One officer instructed H-F-M-J to get out of the car, declaring that the officers had an arrest warrant,” Kasubhai wrote.

But “[a]t no point prior to his arrest did officers ask H-F-M-J for his name or show him any warrant,” Kasubhai wrote, citing H-F-M-J’s September testimony.

After arresting H-F-M-J and his co-worker, the men were taken to the Eugene ICE office where, according to H-F-M-J’s testimony, agents told him “to sign a form to avoid prolonged detention and to receive $2500,” Kasubhai wrote.

H-F-M-J signed but did so without understanding the document, provided to him only in English, Kasubhai wrote in his order.

“H-F-M-J testified that he would not have signed the document if he knew what it was, but he felt pressured by the ICE agents to sign it. Following his arrest, H-F-M-J’s attorney filed a petition for habeas corpus, and a federal judge ordered his release that same day. He now reports weekly to ICE,” Kasubhai wrote.

In court, ICE maintained H-F-M-J was arrested based on a “field warrant,” which Kasubhai defined as a warrant “issued in the field after ICE officers encounter an individual who they believe is illegally present in the United States.”

But H-F-M-J testified “he never even provided ICE officers with his name before officers arrested him,” Kasubhai wrote.

In contrast, ICE officers “claim to promptly identify the arrestees and their backgrounds ‘[u]pon questioning,’” Kasubhai wrote, citing ICE documents.

But accounts from ICE documents for both H-F-M-J and his co-worker, identified as A-V-L, are “strikingly similar,” Kasubhai wrote, stating “the Court is skeptical that both H-F-M-J and A-V-L provided such identical information so promptly, particularly in light of H-F-M-J’s credible testimony that he never even provided ICE officers with his name before officers arrested him.”

Kasubhai wrote that, based on the evidence, he viewed the arrest of H-F-M-J as a “warrantless arrest,” and, in analyzing the evidence of actions by ICE officers, failed to heed the judge’s preliminary injunction.

“There is no evidence in this record that ICE agents conducted any assessment of escape risk or had any reason to believe that H-F-M-J posed an escape risk prior to effecting his arrest,” Kasubhai wrote.

Other testimony

Much of Kasubhai’s 50-page order described findings based on testimony of others, including an ICE officer’s testimony about making arrests in the Medford area of southern Oregon.

The officer testified he and a partner “ran license plates at Wal-Mart until they found a car whose owner was unlawfully present in the United States,” Kasubhai wrote in the order.

Kasubhai’s opinion discussed an arrest in which the officer admitted that documentation of the arrest of a person identified as H-D-G-H contained information about a different man in the same vehicle stopped by ICE officers at Emigrant Lake in Jackson County.

The false information by the ICE agent, identified as Officer JG, was included in an ICE form known as an I-213.

“Officer J.G. lied in the I-213 by copying the language that he wrote in the report for driver M-T-M, the initial target of Officer J.G.’s investigation,” Kasubhai wrote in his order.

H-D-G-H “stated that he did not speak to officers at all during the encounter and that he was frightened,” Kasubhai wrote. The judge found “Officer J.G.’s testimony to be highly doubtful in light of his false statements in his I-213 narrative for H-D-G-H’s arrest.”

In addition to ordering body-worn camera video be handed over to Innovation Law Lab attorneys, Kasubhai ordered additional documentation about ICE arrests be handed over, and documents be handed over without redactions.

The February injunction ordered the I-213 forms be handed over, but Kasubhai wrote that the form’s narratives “produced by Defendants in this case have been boilerplate, vague, or outright fabricated.”

“Plaintiffs have shown that Defendants have simply failed to provide comprehensive records of warrantless arrests in Oregon under the current terms of the injunction,” Kasubhai wrote.

Kasubhai noted that only starting Sept. 1 did ICE officers nationwide begin wearing body-worn cameras.

“In light of the errors and falsehoods in the I-213 narratives, body worn camera footage will allow Plaintiffs to determine whether Defendants conducted a warrantless arrest and whether officers completed an individualized escape risk assessment for warrantless arrestees,” Kasubhai wrote.

The order included strong words from Kasubhai about ICE, the defendants in the case.

“The presumption of regularity directs the courts to assume, unless clear evidence indicates differently, that government officials have properly discharged their duties, acted in good faith and followed required procedures,” Kasubhai wrote. 

“This presumption no longer holds for Defendants. The evidence in this case proves as much.”