Yale Law students, Wishnie sue ICE over 2007 immigration raid (after Elm City card passed)

Yale Law students - led by professor Michael Wishnie - are suing various current or former ICE (part of the Department of Homeland Security) officials and agents over a 2007 immigration raid in New Haven, Connecticut. They make various claims, including that the agents violated the constitution, that they engaged in racial profiling, and that the raid was in retaliation for New Haven having passed their Elm City Card proposal 36 hours before the raid. That card was an explicit attempt to give city ID cards to illegal aliens, and various ICE officials and the office of the US District Attorney in Connecticut were concerned that New Haven was becoming a sanctuary city. You can download a copy of the complaint from here. One of the defendents is the former head of ICE, Julie Myers.

If the raid truly involved law-breaking on the part of agents, then to that extent Yale Law might have a point, and ICE should improve their training programs in order to make suing them in this way more difficult. However, the bottom line here is that Wishnie and his co-horts want to block immigration enforcement; Wishnie doesn't support our immigration laws. The solution to this problem - the way to block those like Wishnie from trying to block our immigration laws - is to discredit them on video and show just how flawed their ideas are. That should have been done with Harold Koh and if had been done he might not be an administration official. And, it can be done with Wishnie using the points at the penultimate link.

UPDATE: Their legal chances are discussed here.

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 10:28 · · Importance: 4