A federal judge has ruled that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Sandusky Bay Station did not racially discriminate or violate the constitutional rights of several Hispanic individuals its agents stopped or detained.
The case, brought by two organizational plaintiffs, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and the Canton-based Immigrant Worker Project on behalf of their respective members, alleged Border Patrol agents targeted Hispanics in northwest Ohio for stops and detentions, and that agents used racially insensitive terms.
The trial occurred in June in Toledo's U.S. District Court with Judge Jack Zouhary presiding. In his decision issued Wednesday, Judge Zouhary wrote that the plaintiffs failed to show Border Patrol “had a has a policy or practice of escalating consensual encounters through immigration interrogations or encouraging local law enforcement officers to unconstitutionally prolong their investigations.”
The judge said the occasional use by agents of “wet” or “wetback,” understood by many as a slur toward Hispanics or those entering the United States by crossing the Rio Grande River — and a definition the plaintiffs and defense disagreed upon — was not enough to prove a claim of racial profiling or a broader culture of discrimination.
Individual testimony from Hispanic individuals stopped by Border Patrol also failed to show a policy or habit of unlawful seizures, the judge wrote.
“The evidence presented, at best, a handful of distasteful incidents,” he wrote. “But that certainly does not rise to the level necessary for this Court to impose equitable relief on [Customs and Border Protection] and to assume the role of monitoring.”.
Nicole Navas, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil division, declined to comment beyond what was revealed at the trial. Mark Heller, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday evening that he had to confer with co-counsel before commenting.
Contact Lauren Lindstrom at llindstrom@theblade.com, 419-724-6154, or on Twitter @lelindstrom.
First Published February 25, 2016, 1:00 p.m.
