Case: Maldonado v. Holder

n/a | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Filed Date: Sept. 19, 2006

Closed Date: 2015

Clearinghouse coding complete

Case Summary

On September 19, 2006, five men gathered in Kennedy Park in Danbury, Connecticut sought work as day laborers. On the same day, the Danbury Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") were conducting a sting operation in the area. A man offered the petitioners work, so they entered his vehicle and were driven to a parking lot nearby. Upon exiting, the petitioners found themselves surrounded by law enforcement officers and arrested. During questioning, the petitioners m…

On September 19, 2006, five men gathered in Kennedy Park in Danbury, Connecticut sought work as day laborers. On the same day, the Danbury Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") were conducting a sting operation in the area. A man offered the petitioners work, so they entered his vehicle and were driven to a parking lot nearby. Upon exiting, the petitioners found themselves surrounded by law enforcement officers and arrested. During questioning, the petitioners made incriminating statements about their immigration status, which were documented on Form I-213s ("Record[s] of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien").

Between October 2006 and March 2007, the men were served with Notices to Appear. The Notices alleged that they had entered the United States illegally as Ecuadoran citizens and placed them in removal proceedings. The men appeared before an Immigration Judge and moved to suppress their Form I-213s, arguing that egregious violations of their Fourth Amendment rights while in the custody of ICE required suppression of the statements within the forms. In January 2008, the Immigration Judge denied the motions and ordered the men removed.

The five men (“petitioners”) appealed the decisions to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). They also filed motions to remand, arguing that previously unavailable evidence demonstrated that they had been arrested by the Danbury Police Department, not ICE. In July 2010, the BIA denied the motions and dismissed the appeals. The petitioners appealed these decisions to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a consolidated appeal. In 2011, the petitioners moved to reopen the proceedings based on new evidence produced in their civil rights lawsuit against ICE and the Mayor of Danbury. See Danbury Area Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security and Barrera v. Boughton. The BIA denied these motions; so the petitioners then appealed those decisions to the Second Circuit. All of the appeals were consolidated.

On August 14, 2014, a divided three judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the petitioners' petitions for review of the BIA orders. In an opinion written by Judge Dennis Jacobs, the court held that the petitioners' allegations, along with the evidence they submitted with their affidavits, failed to amount to "egregious constitutional violations," and therefore no basis existed for excluding the Form I-213 evidence. The court found that the petitioners "self-selected on the basis of their willingness to seek and accept day labor," and that there was no evidence they were gathered by the authorities or targeted on the basis of their race.

The court also concluded that petitioners could not rely on exclusionary principles drawn from the criminal context, as this was a "purely civil action to determine eligibility to remain in this country, not to punish an unlawful entry." ICE's alleged pre-hearing violations of its own internal agency rules did not warrant termination of removal proceedings. And the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying the motions to reopen, as it "reasonably determined that evidence of use of force during arrest was neither new nor previously unavailable." Maldonado v. Holder, 763 F.3d 155 (2d Cir. 2014).

In dissent, Judge Gerard E. Lynch stated his belief that the majority erected a "nearly insuperable barrier to obtaining an evidentiary hearing rest[ing] on a cramped definition of egregiousness that is inconsistent with [Second Circuit] precedent" that "threatens to deprive persons placed in removal proceedings of the basic levels of fundamental fairness that the Constitution demands." Judge Lynch stated that the petitioners offered sufficient evidence that, if true, suggested "a multi-year harassment campaign targeted at Danbury's Hispanic residents" that culminated in the arrest of petitioners "without plausible legal justification based solely on their ethnicity, national origin, and status as day laborers." This, he believed, satisfied the necessary "egregiousness" analysis and warranted a full evidentiary hearing. Maldonado v. Holder, 763 F.3d 155 (2d Cir. 2014).

On December 30, 2014, the Second Circuit denied the petitioners' motion for rehearing en banc. The case is now closed.

Summary Authors

Dan Whitman (2/16/2015)

Sam Kulhanek (11/9/2018)

Related Cases

Danbury Area Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, District of Connecticut (2006)

Barrera v. Boughton, District of Connecticut (2007)

People


Judge(s)
Attorney for Plaintiff
Attorney for Defendant
Expert/Monitor/Master/Other

-, Christian James (Connecticut)

-, Muneer Ahmad, (Connecticut)

-, Michael Joel (Connecticut)

-, Felicia H. (Connecticut)

-, Jessica Karp (Connecticut)

show all people

Documents in the Clearinghouse

Document

10-03259

Docket

Maldonado v. Holder

Jan. 14, 2015

Jan. 14, 2015

Docket

Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying appeal and denying motion to remand

In re: Edgar Eladio Predrouan

No Court

July 6, 2010

July 6, 2010

Monitor/Expert/Receiver Report

Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying appeal and denying motion to remand

In re: Jose Rodolfo Cabrera

No Court

July 16, 2010

July 16, 2010

Monitor/Expert/Receiver Report

Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying appeal and denying motion to remand

In re: Juan Carlos Simbanach

No Court

July 16, 2010

July 16, 2010

Monitor/Expert/Receiver Report

Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying appeal and denying motion to remand

In re: Isaac Antonio Maldonado

No Court

July 19, 2010

July 19, 2010

Order/Opinion

Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying appeal and denying motion to remand

In re: Juan Alberto Barrera

No Court

July 19, 2010

July 19, 2010

Monitor/Expert/Receiver Report
417-1

10-03259

Second Circuit opinion

Aug. 14, 2014

Aug. 14, 2014

Order/Opinion

763 F.3d 763

Docket

Last updated Aug. 30, 2023, 1:47 p.m.

Docket sheet not available via the Clearinghouse.

Case Details

State / Territory: Connecticut

Case Type(s):

Immigration and/or the Border

Key Dates

Filing Date: Sept. 19, 2006

Closing Date: 2015

Case Ongoing: No

Plaintiffs

Plaintiff Description:

Five immigrants seeking review of Board of Immigration Appeals orders dismissing their appeals of Immigration Judge decisions and denying their motions to remand and reopen removal proceedings.

Plaintiff Type(s):

Private Plaintiff

Attorney Organizations:

Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization (Yale)

National Immigration Law Center

Public Interest Lawyer: Yes

Filed Pro Se: No

Class Action Sought: No

Class Action Outcome: Not sought

Defendants

Executive Office for Immigration Review (Board of Immigration Appeals) (Washington, DC), Federal

Defendant Type(s):

Law-enforcement

Case Details

Constitutional Clause(s):

Unreasonable search and seizure

Special Case Type(s):

Out-of-court

Available Documents:

Non-settlement Outcome

Any published opinion

Outcome

Prevailing Party: Defendant

Nature of Relief:

None

Source of Relief:

None

Amount Defendant Pays: 0

Issues

General:

Racial profiling

Discrimination-basis:

National origin discrimination

Race discrimination

Immigration/Border:

Constitutional rights

Deportation - criteria

Deportation - judicial review

Deportation - procedure

ICE/DHS/INS raid

Undocumented immigrants - rights and duties

Undocumented immigrants - state and local regulation

National Origin/Ethnicity:

Hispanic