ICE accused of continuing warrantless arrests in Oregon despite injunction

Former ICE arrestees testified the agency made unlawful arrests and failed to comply with a judge’s February injunction governing immigration enforcement in Oregon.(CN) — Four men testifying Friday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest and detention practices in Oregon said they were asked few, if any questions, before they were taken to detention facilities hours away from their homes.Speaking through Spanish interpreters, the men — all in their 20s and 30s who work in blue-collar and service-connected jobs — said they still fear arrest by ICE and potential deportation, despite the fact that they are following immigration laws.Their testimony bolstered arguments from a class of Oregon immigrants who want U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai to ensure the government is complying with February injunction preventing ICE agents from arresting Oregon residents without a warrant and without determining whether they posed a flight risk.The order provided them with new rules and parameters for how to perform an arrest that comported with the law.A 34-year-old man from Venezuela, known only as JCCV, living in The Dalles, Oregon, with his family, said that he had a pending immigration application when he was inexplicably detained and taken to a Portland facility for multiple days.He said agents mistook him for his brother, who is also living in the U.S., but didn’t bother to check his identification.JCCV and other witnesses described being pressured by agents into signing a document for voluntary self-deportation.“Before you signed it, did anyone explain to you that you were signing a document that would cause you to be removed from the country?” Kasubhai asked the man.“No,” he said.“What documents were the language in?”“English.”“Can you read English?”“No.”“Would you have signed the documents if they told you it was a form for voluntary departure?”“No.”Nelly Paola Garcia Orjuela, an attorney with the Innovation Law Lab, said the warrantless arrests were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to hit immigration arrest quotas to conform with the president’s sweeping deportation program.“This meant a contingent of ICE agents were deployed to arrest many Oregonians without a warrant, detain them and transfer them out of state. Defendants did not discontinue this practice, and it’s because defendants continue to defy the law and are not complying with the law is why we are here today," Orjuela said.Specifically, Orjuela accused ICE of making flight risk assessments of arrestees after their detention, applying improper flight risk standards, underreporting arrests and redacting and withholding arrest data meant to ensure compliance with the judge’s order, among other things.Amber Qureshi, an attorney with the Deportation Data Project, which publicizes immigration enforcement data through Freedom of Information Act requests and other sources, testified there were 574 immigration arrests in Oregon between the judge’s February order and July.Of those, 504 have been noncustodial arrests, which means they are more likely to have occurred without an arrest warrant, she explained.At the end of an all-day evidentiary hearing, the judge signaled support for the request.“At the minimum, the attention behind the document disclosure ordered in the preliminary injunction is not being met,” Kasubhai, a Joe Biden appointee, said. “I need to revisit what is being required to ensure the respondents are complying with my preliminary injunction.”On cross-examination, the DOJ attorneys attempted to poke holes in witness testimony, questioning the validity and consistency of their statements.“Plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating defendants have the violated injunction by clear and convincing evidence. They have not met that burden," DOJ attorney Ariana Garousi said.Department of Justice attorneys argued that the men all had warrants for their arrest, which necessitated their detention.Kasubhai also expressed confusion over ICE’s use of previously issued warrants to re-arrest immigrants.“The idea that a warrant is issued and then someone is taken into custody and released generally means that the warrant is now resolved, and if somebody wanted to take that individual back into custody there would have to be an issuance of another warrant,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that the underlying issue has been resolved, but a new warrant has to be issued.”But the DOJ attorneys argued that is not what Department of Homeland Security regulations require.DOJ attorneys only called one witness, an ICE agent in the Medford, Oregon, known as JG who described the arrest of two of the witnesses.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads