美国国家公共电台 NPR ICE Detained The Wrong Peter Brown

ICE Detained The Wrong Peter Brown

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Every year, dozens of U.S. citizens are detained because they're thought to be immigrants in the country illegally. In the Florida Keys, one such U.S. citizen filed a lawsuit 1 after being detained for weeks by a local sheriff on behalf of immigration authorities. The case raises questions about agreements between federal officials and local law enforcement across the country. From Miami, NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE 2: Peter Brown moved several years ago to the Florida Keys, and he's taken with the place.

PETER BROWN: It's unlike anything. It's the Keys, so it's a very different, very laid back place.

ALLEN: Brown's life took an unexpected turn last spring. He tested positive for marijuana, violating his probation 3. He'd had an earlier run-in with police at a Key West bar and pleaded guilty to resisting arrest. After turning himself into the Monroe County sheriff, he was thrown in jail. Then deputies told him he was being held on a detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency known as ICE.

BROWN: I thought it was a joke honestly at first, or it's just some odd fluke because it just made no sense.

ALLEN: Under an agreement with ICE, Monroe County's sheriff had sent Brown's fingerprints 4 to the federal agency. ICE identified him as a Jamaican who was here illegally and flagged him for deportation 5. In fact, Brown was born in Philadelphia, raised in New Jersey 6 and has seen Jamaica only once briefly 7 on a cruise. For weeks, Brown says he told everyone repeatedly that he was a U.S. citizen.

BROWN: And really received no response except for, one, that I was told, well, this is between ICE and your attorneys.

ALLEN: A judge ordered Brown released from his detention 8 on a probation violation 9. The sheriff's office continued holding him in custody 10 for ICE. It's all part of an agreement signed in January.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

THOMAS HOMAN: Today's a good day for ICE. Today's a good day for Florida law enforcement.

ALLEN: That's ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan, who's since retired 11. Working with the National Sheriffs Association, ICE developed a new agreement aimed at encouraging more of the nation's 3,000 sheriffs to cooperate with them. Sheriffs across the country hold people flagged by ICE and are paid to house detainees until the agency picks them up.

The problem for sheriffs and other local law enforcement is that when people like Peter Brown are held unjustly, courts have found them liable and ordered them to pay big settlements. The new agreement is intended to protect them from liability. The case in the Florida Keys is the first challenging the agreement. ACLU lawyer Amien Kacou represents Peter Brown.

AMIEN KACOU: Sheriffs are not immigration agents. They should probably not be arresting people for deportation as a general rule. But if they do, they should make sure they have probable cause for every arrest or otherwise expect to be held legally accountable.

ALLEN: In a statement, the sheriff in Monroe County, Rick Ramsay, said, quote, "when an inmate 12 is held under an ICE matter, I as sheriff do not have legal authority to release that person." Jonathan Thompson with the National Sheriffs' Association says Peter Brown is suing the wrong agency.

JONATHAN THOMPSON: The real defendant 13 in this case needs to be ICE. We think that they owe this gentleman probably an apology. As per our agreement or the sheriff's agreement in this case with ICE, they followed the process. They followed the letter of the law.

ALLEN: Monroe County's sheriff eventually turned Peter Brown over to ICE. The federal agency realized its error and released him in less than a day. Brown is now suing the sheriff for false imprisonment 14 and depriving him of his Fourth Amendment 15 rights. Jacqueline Stevens, who directs the deportation research clinic at Northwestern University, says they've found more than 250 cases in six years of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE. When they go to court, she says, local law enforcement has been held liable.

JACQUELINE STEVENS: I am aware of no case in which a court agreed that a local sheriff could simply ignore evidence of somebody's U.S. citizenship 16 and assert that they were acting 17 under the authority of a database that was maintained by ICE.

ALLEN: The case in the Florida Keys will be watched closely by law enforcement and immigration attorneys. So far, 35 sheriffs, mostly in Florida, have signed onto the new agreement. Greg, Allen, NPR News, Miami.