On November 14, 2018, Migrant Justice, Inc. and four individual members of the organization filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont. The plaintiffs sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and the United States under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). The plaintiffs, represented by the various public interest organizations including the ACLU of Vermont, Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Immigration Law Center, as well as private counsel, sought injunctive, monetary, and declaratory relief, claiming violations of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, as well as federal tort claims, including Invasion of Privacy, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and False Imprisonment.
The plaintiffs, organizers and advocates for immigrant farmworkers, alleged that ICE has retaliated against them in response to their advocacy and public criticism, thereby chilling their speech and interfering with their freedom of association. As a result, Migrant Justice claimed that it had to take extensive and costly precautions, limiting its overall reach to the community. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that ICE has infiltrated their meetings; targeted, surveilled, and engaged in disinformation campaigns to sow distrust among their members; and arrested and/or detained twenty active Migrant Justice members pursuant to an unlawful retaliatory policy. The plaintiffs further alleged that DMV employees consistently share personally identifying information about plaintiffs with ICE in a manner that disproportionately targets and impacts non-white and Latinx residents.
The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on February 7, 2019, removing one member of the organization as a plaintiff. There were no other substantive changes made to the complaint.
On January 21, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice as to Wanda Minoli, the Commissioner of the Vermont DMV after entering into a settlement. The DMV agreed to not share immigration or citizenship information with ICE, DHS, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and to implement new protocols to protect against such disclosures, including training for its law enforcement employees, counter staff, and managers. The settlement also included improvements to the DMV's language access services. The DMV agreed to 18 months of auditing and $100,000 in attorneys' fees: $20,000 would go to the plaintiffs and $80,000 would be set aside for the DMV's costs in complying with the settlement.
On October 28, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice after entering into a settlement with the remaining defendants. The U.S. agreed to pay $100,000 in damages. ICE granted the plaintiffs deferred action for five years (stopping their potential deportations), and said it would not use any information gathered during this lawsuit, deferred action requests, or employment authorization applications against the plaintiffs in any future immigration proceedings. ICE also promised to tell its agents that immigrants, regardless of immigration status, are protected by the First Amendment and have the right to freedom of speech and assembly. This included sending a memo to its Vermont employees to explain that they must act in accordance with the First Amendment, including its commitment to not profile, target on account of, or discriminate against any individual or group for exercising First Amendment rights."
The case is ongoing.
Shannon Nelson - 04/22/2019
Olivia Vigiletti - 10/05/2019
Lauren Yu - 11/12/2020
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