A U.S. citizen who ICE detained for weeks is suing the agency, alleging it violated his Constitutional rights.
The lawsuit holds that Rony Chavez Aguilar was held in ICE custody for nearly three weeks without being able to see a judge, and without knowing why he was being detained.
According to the suit, those officers initially arrested Aguilar on drug charges. He pleaded guilty and spent about two weeks in county jail for the offense. After the two weeks were up, he would have been free to go. But ICE thought he was undocumented, and wanted to deport him.
The officers kept him in the county jail so agents with ICE’s Chicago field office could take him into custody. ICE then picked him up on or around March 7 and moved him to the Boone County Jail in Burlington, Kentucky, where they contract out space to detain people facing deportation. At that point, Aguilar told them he was a U.S. citizen-- but they didn’t believe him.
“He said, ‘Hey, I’m a citizen!’” said Charles Roth, who is representing Aguilar. “And basically they said, ‘Tell it to the judge.’” However, they didn’t let him see one.
Roth, who is also the litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center, said many other immigrants find themselves in the same situation as Aguilar—detained for days or weeks without knowing what charges they face and without getting to defend themselves before a judge—and that he hopes a judge will let those people join Aguilar in a class action suit.
If Aguilar is successful, it could present a significant challenge for Trump’s mass deportation efforts. ICE doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
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