Massachusetts' highest court ruled Monday that local law enforcement officials do not have the authority, under state law, to honor so-called ICE detainers.
An ICE detainer is a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold a person in custody whose criminal proceedings have been settled and who is otherwise free to go. This could mean the individual's charges have been dismissed, they've posted bail or their jail sentence has been completed. The detainer – which is not the same as an arrest warrant, which requires proof of probable cause and a judge's signature -- gives ICE up to two days to look into a person's immigration status and potentially pursue deportation.
The Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Lunn v. Commonwealth means individuals that would normally be released cannot be held solely on the basis of these requests from federal immigration officials.
Susan Church, a former head of the New England chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says this Massachusetts ruling could provide a roadmap for other states.
"This is hopefully something that we will look back on and see that it sent a message out to all the other states that this is not the job of the states, to be enforcing federal immigration laws," she said.
Federal officials, including the nation's top law enforcement officer, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have argued that detainers give federal immigration officials a chance to investigate a person's immigration status while keeping criminals off the streets.
But Emma Winger, an attorney who represented Lunn before the SJC, says that concerns about public safety are not relevant.
"Detainers only apply to folks who have, for example, been found not guilty, or their case has been dismissed or a judge has determined they should be released on bail," Winger says. "So, this case doesn't in any way threaten the public safety of Massachusetts residents."
The SJC's decision explains how Sreynoun Lunn – a man who was first ordered deported in 2008 – came to be at the center of this case:
Lunn was arraigned in the Boston Municipal Court on October 24, 2016, on a single count of unarmed robbery. The day before the arraignment, the United States Department of Homeland Security ... issued a civil immigration detainer against him. The detainer document was a standard form document then in use by the department. It requested, among other things, that the Massachusetts authorities continue to hold Lunn in State custody for up to two days after he would otherwise be released, in order to give officers of the department time to arrive and take him into Federal custody.
Lunn has been held in federal immigration custody several times since 2008. He was most recently held as a result of the ICE detainer mentioned in the SJC's decision, where he remained for more than three months as immigration officials attempted to deport him.
However, because Lunn was born to Cambodian parents in a Thai refugee camp, neither nation recognizes him as a citizen. Both nations have refused to take him, preventing the U.S. from deporting him to either place.
Lunn was most recently released from federal custody in June after lawyers argued he was being held without due process.
This report comes from the New England News Collaborative, eight public media companies coming together to tell the story of a changing region, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.