Suffolk County will appeal a jury’s award of $112 million to nearly 700 immigrants who a judge ruled were unlawfully detained by the sheriff’s office on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a county spokesperson said.
Michael Martino, the county spokesperson, said the county disagreed with the outcome of the class-action lawsuit. The payout is due to be shared by 674 immigrants who were detained over a period of more than four years.
The jury’s decision on compensation followed a federal judge’s ruling in January that the sheriff’s office on Long Island had violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizures under the federal and state constitutions by holding the immigrants past their scheduled release times.
The jury also found that the sheriff’s office violated due process protections by failing to give the immigrants an opportunity to contest their prolonged detention.
“A jury of ordinary New Yorkers recognized the harm that unlawful detention causes and recognized the dignity and pain of our clients just as if they were people who work on Wall Street and have U.S. passports who have been unlawfully detained,” said Andrew Case, a plaintiffs’ attorney with the advocacy group LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
He added: “The number the jury chose shows that they really valued the dignity and humanity of our class.”
According to court papers, the sheriff’s office detained the immigrants after its authority to do so had expired, and in some cases it held the immigrants even after their bail had been paid. The added detentions came in response to ICE detainers – requests by the federal authorities to hold individuals until ICE agents can take a detainee into federal custody for immigration enforcement.
The payout will go to immigrants detained by the sheriff’s office between July 18, 2014 and Nov. 15, 2018, when the sheriff’s office halted its policy of holding people under ICE detainers.
The jury award follows a settlement in New York City last year in a similar case. In December, the city agreed to pay up to $92.5 million to settle claims that it unlawfully detained more than 20,000 immigrants for ICE beyond their scheduled release from city jails, between 1997 and 2012.
In that case, the attorneys noted it would be a "challenging process" to find the people who deserve money from the settlement, especially since some people may have been deported and living outside the United States.
Case said finding the individuals who could receive the payouts isn’t an immediate challenge, as his team prepares for Suffolk County’s appeal.
