As the Trump administration pushes local law enforcement to sign up to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an order to pay out $112 million to unlawfully detained immigrants could serve as a warning of the legal risks.
Last week, a jury ordered Suffolk County, New York, to pay the total sum, which will go to 674 immigrants unlawfully held in jail between 2016 and 2018 based on requests from ICE. The verdict stemmed from a 2017 class action claiming the county violated immigrants’ constitutional rights by keeping them in jail on ICE’s request when they’d otherwise be released.
Immigrant rights attorneys hope that local leaders elsewhere take notice.