Immigration agents who raided a Cato nutrition bar plant violated a worker’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, the chief federal judge in Syracuse ruled Thursday.
Judge Brenda Sannes said federal agents did the “exact opposite” of what they said they would do when they convinced a magistrate judge to give them a warrant to go inside the factory in September.
Sannes said the agents’ conduct was “at best, ‘grossly negligent.’ ”
Sannes ruled in favor of a motion brought by Argentina Juarez-Lopez to suppress the evidence federal agents collected in the raid.
The ruling means the government cannot use her statements, fingerprints, her immigration file or any investigation reports and photos taken of her.
It is the biggest immigration raid in Upstate New York since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Juarez-Lopez was arrested with 56 others at the Cato nutrition bar factory in September.
The ruling is a strong rebuke of tactics federal agents used to get into the plant. It could help to clarify what the government needs to establish to secure a search warrant and how a large raid must be conducted.
But Juarez-Lopez may be the only person to get an immediate and direct benefit from Thursday’s ruling.
She is the only one of 57 people arrested to challenge her arrest. Four others who had that chance entered guilty pleas to a felony charge for re-entering the country after once before being deported. The others were swept into the civil immigration system and many were quickly deported.
Paul Tuck, who left the U.S. attorney’s office earlier this year, filed the motion on behalf of Juarez-Lopez.
Tuck argued that the government’s violations in the raid were “diverse, plentiful and compounding.”
Tuck argued that federal agents secured the wrong kind of warrant to enter the factory. A so-called “Blackie’s warrant” is a warrant for an administrative investigation and did not authorize a mass seizure of workers for questioning without attorneys.
Sannes did not specifically rule on the use of “Blackie’s warrants,” but she sided with Tuck in her 27-page decision.
Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks granted the administrative warrant and a second criminal warrant in August that allowed federal agents to seize computers and records at the factory in Cayuga County.
Neither warrant gave the government authority to detain or arrest any specific person, Sannes wrote in her decision.
Agents gathered the employees in a break room and directed them to self-identify as citizens or non-citizens authorized to work.
“Agents then directed those who did not self-identify to approach them for interviews — the exact opposite of what the government told the magistrate judge they would do,” Sannes wrote.
The New York Civil Liberties Union helped with the motion.