Attorneys seek release of 2 detained by ICE in vehicle stop near Eugene

This story was updated with comment from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Two people detained Friday, July 3, near Eugene by immigration enforcement officers were targeted solely because of their race and ethnicity, according to legal petitions seeking their release.

Officers made the immigration arrests “as part of a widespread enforcement sweep that targets noncitizens going about their daily life around Eugene and the surrounding areas,” state the petitions filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

The court documents filed on behalf of the two detainees — each listed as Lane County residents, with few other details provided — do not aim to resolve the detainees’ immigration status, but instead question whether their being kept in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody is legally justified.

Street-level enforcement in Lane County surged last fall, with Nov. 5 and Nov. 19 each seeing 10 or more immigration arrests. 

But in the months that followed, there have not been any reports of days with double-digit arrests in Lane County. Detentions have continued to occur for immigrants arriving at the Eugene Federal Building for scheduled appointments.

The Friday court filings do not refer to any additional detentions on that day or this month in Lane County. Advocates in other parts of the state, however, have reported a rise in immigration arrests.

Also, the Associated Press reported last week that arrests across the country surged in late June, with ICE arresting 10,000 over five days at the end of the month. 

The petitions for each person detained were filed by attorneys with Catholic Community Services of Lane County.

Last week, before the Friday detentions, Christine Zeller-Powell, director of the nonprofit agency’s Refugee and Immigrant Services Program, noted a rise since June 15 in court petitions seeking the release of people detained by ICE in various parts of the state, including the Albany-Corvallis area, less than 50 miles north of Eugene.

Commonly called habeas petitions, the type of petitions filed Friday challenge whether someone is being lawfully detained.

Federal officers enforcing civil immigration laws must assess a person’s risk of fleeing before making warrantless arrests in Oregon, according to a judge’s Feb. 4 ruling. 

The petitions filed for the people detained Friday allege the officers’ actions were “based not on Petitioner’s personal circumstances or individualized facts” but an order from President Donald Trump “that they ‘do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.’”

In a Tuesday email, an ICE spokesperson denied the racial profiling charges as “disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”

The ICE spokesperson said that the two men arrested were detained by agents during a vehicle stop during a “targeted enforcement action” in Eugene. ICE issued warrants for both men detained, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said law enforcement officers use “reasonable suspicion” to investigate immigration status and “probable cause” to make arrests “consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has already vindicated us on these practices.”

Few details

The two people detained were each “in a vehicle that was boxed in by immigration officers”  Friday morning, with no further details provided about the location of the stop.

There’s no clear statement in the petitions that both people detained were in the same vehicle, but the description of the stop for each is similar.

A person identified only by the initials H-F-M-J is described as the vehicle’s driver, while another person, identified only as A-V-L, is described as being “in a vehicle with other noncitizen when the vehicle was boxed in by immigration officers near Eugene,” court documents state.

Due process cast aside, petitions say

The petitions request oral arguments before a judge and also a judge’s order to release the detainees from ICE custody. 

Aside from those requests, the petitions ask for an order that would prevent the detainees from being transferred anywhere farther from Oregon than a detention center in Tacoma, and an order allowing the detainees to proceed with their petitions using only initials.

The petitions cite “a risk of retaliation” due to the detainees’ “decision to bring this lawsuit.”

Most of the petitions are devoted to claims about the stop.

Officers “at no point during the stop” showed any arrest warrant, nor did they “explain why Petitioner had been stopped initially, or provide any documents of any kind,” the petitions say.

Neither did the officers “provide their name and badge number” or state “that they were immigration officials authorized to make immigration arrests,” according to the petition.

Also, “at no point during the stops did any agent ask Petitioner any questions about her family, employment, or community ties,” and the petition claims that officers failed to assess whether the people detained were a flight risk or a danger to the community.

“On information and belief, at the time of the warrantless arrest, Respondents’ officers had determined based solely on Petitioner’s apparent race and ethnicity that Petitioner was in the United States without status,” the court filings state.

The petitions claim the immigration arrests violated protections under the law and the U.S. Constitution.

“Here, Petitioner has been stopped, arrested, and detained in an arbitrary manner … and not based on a rational or individualized determination of whether Petitioner should be detained based on the individual facts and circumstances pertaining to whether Petitioner was a flight risk or unlawfully present in the United States,” the petitions state.