Motion To Suppress Filed For Soccer-Playing Trespasser

According to the Westchester Journal News article on April 7, 2006 titled "Brewster Day Laborer's Deportation Case Delayed" by Marcela Rojas, attorneys filed a motion to suppress for a soccer-playing man that the local police decided to take unusual step to charge with the small misdemeanor of criminal trespass. The attorneys charge that county sheriff Donald Smith impermissibly tried to enforce immigration violations due solely to public pressure about day laborers.

Pace Law professor Vanessa Merton along with Pace Law students Chris Crane and Kevin Canberg point out that local police have no power to enforce federal immigration violations. None of the immigration violations are crimes.

The motion to suppress focuses on numerous violations of policies and procedures about how an interrogation can be conducted. For example, ICE is trying to use a statement where it is unclear whether the author even conducted the interview in Spanish. In many cases, it is valuable to check whether ICE and local police followed their procedures, because there often can be grounds to try to suppress evidence. Whether an immigration judge will actually suppress the evidence is another question, but it is always best to preserve the issue for appeal by raising it immediately. It is unclear when Judge Durling in Pennsylvania will rule on the motion.

It is also unclear whether the attorneys will raise the 4th Amendment and exclusion due to the violation of Constitutional rights, even if those acts do not rise to the level of being "egregious."