The Latino New York residents and advocacy group Workers' Center of Central New York pointed on Wednesday to public comments from Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, saying the administration's goal for immigration enforcement authorities is to arrest at least 3,000 people a day. In turn, "roving bands of masked and heavily armed federal agents" have indiscriminately arrested thousands of minorities, the plaintiffs said, causing targeted communities to live "under a state of siege."
"Throughout New York state, from Buffalo to New York City and Long Island, federal agents are seizing people outside their homes, on their way to work, while driving their children to school, and in the parking lots of stores," the plaintiffs said in their proposed class action. "Unlike its high-profile, militarized operations in Minnesota, Chicago and Los Angeles, [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcment's] shift in policy and practice in New York has come with no fanfare. Nonetheless, it has caused profound harm and dramatically reshaped the lives of New York's immigrant communities."
To execute a warrantless immigration arrest, Section 1357 of the Immigration and Nationality Act requires that an immigration officer have "reason to believe" that an individual is unlawfully present in the U.S., and will escape before a warrant can be obtained, the plaintiffs said. There must also be an individualized determination to that end, they added.
But given that state law bars the Department of Motor Vehicles from giving driver information for civil immigration enforcement purposes, the various plaintiffs alleging that they were pulled over by immigration authorities were subject to unlawful racial profiling, the plaintiffs said in their complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Immigration officers often also undertake a "photo ruse" to conduct suspicionless stops by having a Spanish-speaking agent approach a Latino person and ask if they've seen a particular Latino person, then surround the approached person and interrogate them about their own status, the plaintiffs said, without allowing them to leave.
The administration, meanwhile, has maintained that it needs to have "reasonable suspicion" rather than "probable cause" to execute a warrantless immigration arrest. However, per a 2022 consent decree in the case Castañon Nava et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Biden administration agreed to issue a nationwide "broadcast statement of policy" that Section 1357 instead requires "probable cause," the plaintiffs noted.
The plaintiffs in the Castañon Nava case filed their lawsuit during the first Trump administration and have since alleged that the government violated the agreement during the current Trump administration, court records show.
Immigration enforcement officers have additionally "routinely" issued after-the-fact administrative warrants to justify a given warrantless arrest, according to Wednesday's lawsuit.
The plaintiffs proposed separate classes relating to individuals subjected to a suspicionless stop, a warrantless arrest, or those who were stopped at least in part because of their apparent Latino ethnicity, along with subclasses for people arrested without an individual assessment of probable cause as to their status or risk of escape.
Meghna Philip of the Legal Aid Society, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement accompanying Wednesday's lawsuit that "this lawlessness must come to an end, and the federal government must be held accountable for its abuse of authority."
"Our clients, and all New Yorkers, deserve to go about their daily lives and routines without fear of arbitrary and discriminatory surveillance, detention and family separation," Philip said.
A DHS spokesperson told Law360 in a statement that "any allegations ICE law enforcement engages in racial profiling are false."
"Law enforcement officers use 'reasonable suspicion' to investigate immigration status and probable cause to make arrests consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," the spokesperson said. "The Supreme Court has already vindicated us on these practices."
In September, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to stay a California federal court's temporary injunction barring the federal government from using race or ethnic traits like accent as a sole basis to conduct an immigration stop.
In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said apparent ethnicity alone cannot constitute a reasonable suspicion, but it still can be a "relevant factor."
The plaintiffs are represented by Meghna Philip, Hasan Shafiqullah, Brian Perbix and Evan Henley of the Legal Aid Society, by Amy Belsher, Ifeyinwa Chikezie, Wafa Junaid and Molly Biklen of the New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, by Paige Austin and Harold Solis of Make the Road New York, and by Mark Gimbel, Giovanni Scarcella and Cecile Duncan of Covington & Burling LLP.
Counsel information for the federal government was not immediately available Thursday.
The case is Benitez et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., case number 2:26-cv-02082, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
--Additional reporting by Marco Poggio and Britain Eakin. Editing by Karin Roberts.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
