Immigration

Knock, Knock -- Room Service? No, ICE.

Wake up, America.  Pushing immigrants further into the shadows isn't going to help anyone.

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Go figure.  Who would have predicted that checking into a Motel 6, with its folksy Tom Bodett “we’ll-leave-the-light-on-for-you” slogan, could get you taken into ICE custody and ultimately deported.

Who would have thought that without seeing warrants, subpoenas, or wanted posters, that Motel 6 personnel in Arizona and possibly other states would routinely send their list of check-in guests to ICE.  Not based on any facts, suspicions, concerns, or compelled action, but just because ICE agents asked them to do it.

Even in our age, when everything a person does can be tracked through cell phones and cookies left on computers, the notion that even checking into a motel can lead to an invasion of one’s most personal right — to sleep where you want — is Orwellian.

A front-desk clerk at a Motel 6 near Phoenix told the New York Times, “We send a report every morning to ICE — all the names of everybody that comes in.  Every morning at about 5 o’clock, we do an audit and we push a button and we send it to ICE.”

This reporting on their customers has been happening since February.  So far, the known tally is 20 people detained.  It was finally uncovered when immigration attorneys compared notes and realized that many of their clients had been arrested at Motel 6s.

Motel 6’s parent company, G6 Hospitality LLC, backed away from responsibility. “This was implemented at the local level without the knowledge of senior management,” said spokesperson Raiza Rehkoff.  She added that the policy has been discontinued, and that they’re conducting an investigation.

It’s unclear if Motel 6s in other states have been doing the same thing. It’s also possible that other economy-hotel chains have also been approached by ICE for the same information.  ICE asks and the guest list gets turned over — no court scrutiny, no reasonable cause, no warrant.  That’s scary.

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Legally if the hoteliers are acting as agents of the government, the immigrants detained can make a case that the “search and seizure” (the search of their names and then their arrest) was without probable cause and therefore unlawful.

But the protection of the U.S. constitution — while guaranteed to everyone, citizen or not, in criminal court — is a trickier matter in immigration circles.  In that venue, immigrants do not have the right to remain silent; the burden of proof is laid on them, not the government, and the exclusionary rule (the rule that mandates the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence or arrests) is a fight, not a given.

What is clear even in these changing times, however, is that the U.S. is still not at the point where it’s lawful for ICE to randomly go up to people who, let’s say, look Hispanic, demand their papers (at least without suspicion of further illegal activity), and arrest them.

Wake up, America.  Pushing immigrants further into the shadows isn’t going to help anyone.  I had a client refuse to testify as a witness against his assailant for fear of coming into criminal court.  It’s common nowadays for criminal defense attorneys in court to send messages on list-servs to each other — Watch out, ICE is on the 2nd floor of Schermerhorn.  (The criminal court building in Brooklyn.)

Another client, a 60-something-year-old man with a series of low-level fraud cases, came to my office last week, panicked.  Jose is a Vietnam war vet, has had a green card for 40 years, suffers from PTSD due to his service, and has U.S. children and grandchildren. “Are they [ICE] just going to show up at my door and arrest me?”

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I told him, “Of course not.”  But now I’m not so sure.

Earlier: At Motel 6, We’ll Keep The Light On For You (And Then Maybe We’ll Call The Cops On You)

Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.

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