{"id":190927,"date":"2026-04-09T14:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/190927\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:36:09","slug":"class-action-lawsuit-accuses-ice-of-unlawful-stops-warrantless-arrests-in-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/190927\/","title":{"rendered":"Class action lawsuit accuses ICE of unlawful stops, warrantless arrests in NY"},"content":{"rendered":"

ICE agents<\/a> operating in New York City and Long Island have conducted scores of suspicionless stops and unlawful arrests of Latinos based solely on the color of their skin, a massive class action suit filed in Brooklyn federal court Thursday claims.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society<\/a>, the NYCLU, Make the Road NY, and others on behalf of eight New York residents claims they were stopped by ICE while doing everyday activities including driving their children to school, pumping gas and walking through a parking lot.<\/p>\n

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grabbed the plaintiffs, took them into custody, and held them for days, sometimes weeks, until their immigration status could be confirmed and they were released, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE is profiling and arresting Black and Brown New Yorkers based solely on their appearance. This is an egregious violation of their civil rights, that has caused fear and panic to ripple throughout New York\u2019s immigrant communities,\u201d Meghna Philip, director of the Special Litigation Unit at the Legal Aid Society, said Thursday. \u201cThis lawlessness must come to an end, and the federal government must be held accountable for its abuse of authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ICEICE protestors gather in Foley Square on Jan. 30, 2026, in Manhattan. (Barry Williams \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

One plaintiff, identified in the lawsuit as A.M.C., was grabbed by ICE on Feb. 24 as he entered his apartment building in Bushwick after returning home from work. He spent seven days in detention before he was released.<\/p>\n

While he continues to commute back and forth to work six days a week, \u201cdue to his Latino ethnicity, A.M.C. fears being stopped, arrested, and detained again while going about his daily life,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

Five of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are from Long Island, where the Nassau County Police Department entered into an agreement with ICE to give agents broad authority to questions residents\u2019 citizenship status<\/a> and make arrests without a judicial warrant. Three of the five plaintiffs live in Suffolk County, where there is no such arrangement with ICE.<\/p>\n

Two other plaintiffs live in the Buffalo area.<\/p>\n

All claim they were racially profiled before their apprehension, violating a raft of federal laws and regulations. The lawsuit claims ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents continually violate laws requiring reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation before taking someone into custody.<\/p>\n

\"FederalFederal agents conduct an immigration sweep on Canal Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo\/Jake Offenhartz)<\/p>\n

Federal law demands that agents have probable cause of both an immigration violation and a likelihood of escape before making a warrantless arrest \u2014 something ICE agents often ignore, attorneys for the plaintiffs claim. Agents are flouting these laws in an effort to meet the Trump Administration\u2019s immigration arrest quotas, according to the suit.<\/p>\n

In the first six months of Trump\u2019s current administration, immigration officials arrested 2,888 non-citizens in the greater New York City area, more than triple the amount arrested in the first six months of the previous administration, attorneys say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis policy of racial profiling is illegal and unconscionable,\u201d New York State Attorney General Letitia James said about ICE\u2019s tactics outlined in the lawsuit.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNew Yorkers should be able to go about their daily lives without fear of being targeted by masked federal agents because of the color of their skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

An email to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security regarding the lawsuit was not immediately returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ICE agents operating in New York City and Long Island have conducted scores of suspicionless stops and unlawful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,86,9,24,55,54,264,692,12,56,261,87,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-190927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-city","9":"tag-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-national-politics","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-city-news","18":"tag-new-york-county","19":"tag-new-york-politics","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-nyc-crime","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}