Court Vindicates Trooper's Ability to Enforce Immigration Laws
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=22422&news_iv_ctrl=2122#4

On February 4, 2010, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts, issued an important decision involving the enforcement of immigration laws by state and local officers.  The case, Estrada v. State of Rhode Island, involved a Rhode Island State Trooper who pulled over a van for failing to use its turn signal to change lanes.  Upon approaching the vehicle, the Trooper observed that the van contained between twelve and fourteen Hispanic males.  The officer asked for identification from the driver and the passengers, but most passengers could produce no identification, except for two Guatemalan consular identification cards.  Upon questioning the driver, the driver admitted that the van’s occupants were illegal aliens.  The Trooper then returned to his vehicle to contact ICE.  The ICE agent asked the Trooper to bring the van and its occupants to the nearest ICE office.  The passengers were later deported.

The Trooper was subsequently sued by the driver and the passengers, with the ACLU representing the illegal aliens.  IRLI represented the National Fraternal Order of Police (“National FOP”) to support the Trooper and the State of Rhode Island.  The ACLU argued that the Trooper did not have the authority to arrest the illegal aliens.  In its brief, IRLI pointed out that the driver and the van’s occupants were committing numerous immigration violations which gave the officer all the authority he needed to arrest the illegal aliens.  For instance, IRLI pointed out that the van’s occupants upon presenting their Guatemalan consular cards were admitting that they were of Guatemalan nationality.  As a result, the officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that they were aliens in the United States, either lawfully or unlawfully present.  When an alien enters the United States, they are required by law to register with the federal government and obtain registration documents which they must keep on their persons at all times.  Once the aliens could not present any other form of identification, it showed that the aliens had likely committed either the crime of failing to register upon entering the United States or, if they had registered, for failing to carry their registration documents on their persons.  These are both misdemeanors in federal immigration law.

The majority of the Court held that the trooper had established that he should be granted “qualified immunity,” which essentially means that based on the facts of the case, a reasonable officer would believe that he had not violated someone’s rights.  Tellingly, the majority justice pointed to one of the registration crimes which only IRLI and the National FOP had identified to the Court.  Additionally, the concurring justice issued an opinion pointing out that Consular cards establish that individuals are citizens of foreign countries, and due to the lack of registration documents on the van’s occupants, that there was a “real prospect that there were violations of criminal law…by the van’s passengers.” 

This case will have a major impact on the ability of state and local officers to arrest individuals for violating immigration laws.  Additionally, state and local governments can more easily pass laws that will help ICE in the enforcement of immigration laws.  For example, the State of Arizona currently has pending legislation that would authorize officers to arrest individuals for either not carrying their registration documents or for not registering for their registration documents, consistent with this opinion.