Officials with the ACLU announced Thursday that they are dismissing a lawsuit alleging that ICE agents racially profiled people of color during Operation Metro Surge. However, they say plaintiffs — many of whom are U.S. citizens or legal residents — will file administrative actions against the Department of Homeland Security and refile lawsuits after the process is complete.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit is Jonathan Aguilar Garcia, who was born in the United States. He was working at a Target store in Richfield in January when agents detained him.
"I kept yelling that I was a US citizen, but the agents ignored me,” he said. “The agent who grabbed my shoulders tried to push me into an SUV, but I slipped and slammed my head on the SUV."
Garcia says the agents drove him to a parking lot of another store, where they let him go.
In March of this year, as the surge subsided, a judge found evidence to support claims of racial profiling. However, he denied a request to order ICE to stop using those practices, saying the plaintiffs failed to show they faced future harm, largely due to the reduction in ICE agents’ presence in the state.
“We were disappointed in the court's decision not to issue an injunction against the unlawful policies,” said ACLU staff attorney Catherine Ahlin-Halverson. “Courts in other jurisdictions have halted unconstitutional policies like this because they target a specific group of people who could not avoid repeated encounters with immigration agents.”
She said agents stopped people who were out doing daily tasks such as making trips to the grocery store or dropping off their kids at school.
