Between 1997 and 2012, the city was accused of illegally detaining over 20,000 individuals over their planned release dates to comply with ICE detainer requests.
For many years, New York City jails were a dependable source for federal immigration authorities looking to deport unauthorized immigrants.
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When an immigrant was in police custody or serving a brief jail term, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel targeted them and asked the city to keep them for up to 48 hours after their time was up. After that, the agents picked them up and placed them in deportation procedures.
A court settled a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday, and the city agreed to pay up to $92.5 million in damages because of its collaboration, which occasionally led to immigrants being detained for much longer than a day or two.
The complaint was filed more than ten years ago, and the plaintiffs claimed that the city illegally held over 20,000 people for days, weeks, and even months after their planned release dates, after ICE had requested that they be held temporarily.
With reimbursements of up to tens of thousands of dollars, those immigrants will be eligible to receive a portion of the $92.5 million, which the city comptroller’s office claims is one of the largest class-action settlements in the city.
According to the city’s law department, municipal authorities have “operated with the assumption that compliance with ICE detainers was mandated under federal law.”
The statement went on to say, “Court rulings eventually clarified that localities could not hold a detainee beyond their release date based solely on the contents of a federal detainer and that a court order is needed. New York City changed its policies in 2012 to conform with these court rulings.”
Now, the civil rights attorneys who have been involved in the lawsuit since 2010 will face a new challenge: finding the thousands of qualified immigrants, some of whom may have died or were scattered over the world.
One of the case’s principal attorneys, Debra Greenberger, stated that her group was “clear that it’s going to be hard to find people.” People will be able to submit claims online, she added, and her staff would collaborate with regional immigration organizations to promote the initiative.
“The settlement provides a measure of justice for people who were forced to be incarcerated in often horrific conditions when they should have been allowed to go home,” she stated. “We think it’s an important statement about this city’s past culpability in turning immigrants, and even sometimes citizens, over to ICE when that was not something they lawfully should have been doing.”
Although the practice dwindled as the city started strengthening its sanctuary rules in recent years, it gave ICE a handy path to deport noncitizens by directly moving aliens from prisons to federal custody.
After implementing several regulations between 2011 and 2014 that significantly reduced the city’s role in deporting immigrants, New York City now seldom ever works with ICE. The city’s plans are unclear once President-elect Donald J. Trump becomes office; in 2021, Democrat Mayor Eric Adams wants to review the sanctuary laws to collaborate more closely with ICE in order to deport offenders.
The settlement brought an end to a difficult legal struggle that started 14 years ago when Oscar Onadia, a Burkina Faso immigrant who was detained at Rikers Island for an additional 41 days after serving his sentence, filed a complaint. To include hundreds of additional people who may have been wrongfully incarcerated by the city’s Department of Corrections, the complaint was approved as a class-action lawsuit in 2017.
Mr. Onadia should have been freed two days after being apprehended on December 10, 2008, for driving without a license. However, ICE had filed a “detainer request,” a procedure that asks prisons to keep a person for up to 48 hours beyond their planned release. The purpose of the additional time is to allow ICE to take physical possession of the individual and look into their immigration status.
However, the complaint characterized the prolonged period of incarceration as “unjustified, illegal, and not privileged.” Mr. Onadia was detained in jail for almost a month after his intended release date, and the city rejected his initial attempts to post bond, which was set at $1.
When the city detained immigrants at ICE’s request, even for a mere 48 hours, the plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed that this was a violation of both federal law and the Constitution.
The lengthy talks that resulted from the class-action case lasted longer than Mr. Onadia: According to Ms. Greenberger, he passed away earlier this year while in his early 50s. In addition to compensation for the 41 days he was jailed, the city would also give his wife $25,000.
His attorneys estimate that throughout the 15 years covered by the settlement, the city “over-detained” 20,900 individuals with ICE detainer petitions for a total of 166,475 days.
The fingerprints of illegal immigrants are automatically sent to ICE upon arrest or incarceration, and ICE has long collaborated with jails and prisons nationwide to locate and deport these individuals.
Detainers did not provide the probable cause necessary to hold someone in jail, according to federal and state courts that started to decide a few years ago. Jurisdictions and so-called sanctuary cities also started enacting laws to restrict their collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
Mayor Bill de Blasio approved legislation in 2014 prohibiting the city from complying with ICE detention requests unless the individual had been found guilty of a “violent or serious crime” and a judge’s warrant was produced by the federal government. Additionally, the Act ended ICE’s presence in the Rikers Island jail complex, where its headquarters were located.
ICE detainers were less often honored by the city.
Before the passage of those rules, the Correction Department sent over 3,000 individuals to ICE because of detainer petitions between October 2012 and September 2013. Ten individuals who had all been found guilty of severe or major offenses were transferred by the department in the year preceding June 30, 2023, when it received 201 detainer requests from ICE. “without additional detention,” based on an annual report.
According to ICE officials, detainer requests make it easier for the agency to deport dangerous people and make sure they aren’t released into the community from jails and prisons. Additionally, they have stated that obtaining judicial warrants is challenging.
On Wednesday, Bronx State Supreme Court Justice Mitchell J. Danziger gave his preliminary approval to the class-action lawsuit’s settlement deal. According to attorneys, a hearing in October 2025 would precede final court approval, after notification and an opportunity for class members to comment.
A settlement administrator, a third-party organization designated by the court, will use a list of former prisoners with ICE detainer requests that the city has submitted to attempt to locate claimants. The number of claims filed and the length of time each person was detained will determine the payments.
As part of the settlement, the city disputed that any of its agencies had or still do “a pattern or practice that deprived persons of rights, privileges or immunities” secured by the Constitution, state and federal laws, or both.
A reporter specializing in immigration, Luis Ferré-Sadurní reports on the flood of migrants coming to the New York area.
