This story was updated at 7:40 p.m. Wednesday.
Migrant Justice is accusing federal authorities of targeting its leaders and members for their work in organizing immigrant farmworkers in Vermont.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday also alleges those federal authorities used a confidential informant to infiltrate the Burlington-based group to gain information on the organization and its members.
Migrant Justice and its supporters held a rally Wednesday outside federal court in Burlington as lawyers went inside and filed the 41-page lawsuit on behalf of the organization and four of the group’s members.
Those four members were previously detained by federal authorities and are now free awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings for alleged immigration violations.
The crowd outside the courthouse, holding signs reading, “Deport the Donald, Abolish ICE,” and “I Stand with Migrant Workers,” also chanted, “Not one more,” and “Stop the raids, stop the fear, immigrants are welcome here.”
Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, said the actions targeting the organization have taken a toll.
“Migrant Justice has been forced to shift its efforts from advocacy focused on advancing workplace rights to advocacy focused on defending against retaliatory immigration enforcement,” the lawsuit stated.
“Defendants’ unlawful conduct,” the filing added, “continues to exert a substantial chilling effect upon the organization and its members and continues to undermine Migrant Justice’s advocacy.”
The lawsuit accuses federal immigration authorities — with the assistance of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles — of having unlawfully surveilled, harassed, arrested and detained organization members and leaders over the past several years.
In addition to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the federal immigration authorities named as defendants in the lawsuit are the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the federal Department of Homeland Security.
Enrique Balcazar, a Migrant Justice activist and one of the plaintiffs in the case, spoke at the rally. He is facing the possibility of deportation to Mexico, after being stopped in Burlington by federal immigration authorities in March 2017.
“ICE has been persecuting us,” Balcazar said through an interpreter. “They’ve been surveilling Migrant Justice and its membership with the objective to repress our voice, to keep us quiet.”
“They won’t win,” someone in the crowd shouted back at Balcazar.
According to Migrant Justice, federal authorities, through a civilian informant, have infiltrated meetings, invasively surveilled its members and mined their social media pages for information, and targeted, arrested and detained at least nine Migrant Justice members in “direct retaliation” for their activism.
Zully Palacios, another plaintiff in the case and Migrant Justice member who was detained at the same time as Balcazar and faces the possibility of deportation to Peru, spoke out at the rally against the tactics of the federal authorities.
“They infiltrated Migrant Justice using a confidential informant to spy on us and gather information about us and that was key in their investigation that led to my arrest,” Palacios said, speaking through an interpreter.
“I wasn’t doing anything bad,” she said. “The only thing I was doing was raising my voice to defend my rights and the human rights of my community.”
The lawsuit stated the group learned through public requests and other sources that an informant was working with ICE to gather information on Migrant Justice. That person was referred to as a “concerned citizen” in documents, the lawsuit stated.
According to text message sent between ICE agents and the informant, the lawsuit stated, “ICE used the informant to obtain private information to arrest, detain, and retaliate against Plaintiffs and their colleagues because of their activism.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to prohibit the agencies from targeting Migrant Justice and its leaders and members, and to keep those agencies from using tactics, such as confidential informants, to infiltrate the organization.
The lawsuit also seeks to require DMV to train and supervise its employees to ensure that no discriminatory information-sharing or cooperation with federal immigration authorities persists.
Lia Ernst, a staff attorney for the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and one of the lawyers representing Migrant Justice in the case, said the lawsuit claims the group and its members’ free speech and assembly rights have been violated.
ICE officials could not be reached Wednesday for comment. In response to an email seeking comment, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued a one-word reply, “decline.”
Vermont Agency of Transportation Secretary Joseph Flynn, whose agency includes the state Department of Motor Vehicles, also declined Wednesday to comment, citing the ongoing litigation and the fact he had just received the complaint a short time earlier.
Natalie Silver, a spokesperson for Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan, said the office had also just received the complaint Wednesday afternoon and needed more time to review it before commenting. She referred further comment to the Agency of Transportation.
The lawsuit alleges the actions against Migrant Justice are part of a larger nationwide pattern by federal authorities to suppress immigrant activism.
Migrant Justice has raised the issue of its organization and members being targeted by federal immigration authorities repeatedly in recent years, with those authorities denying such actions.
The lawsuit also accuses the state Department of Motor Vehicles with assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security in targeting Migrant Justice leaders following actions by the organization to push for the passage of Vermont’s Driver Privilege Card law in 2013.
That law allows state residents to legally drive in Vermont regardless of their immigration status. While the cards require proof of residency in Vermont, they do not require proof of legal presence in the United States.
According to the release issued ahead of the filing of the lawsuit, documents obtained through public record requests revealed that when the plaintiffs submitted their driver privilege card applications, the DMV sent their personal information directly to ICE, which compiled information on Migrant Justice leaders, including their social media pages and media appearances.
In 2016, the DMV settled a Human Rights Commission case involving a Jordanian man who was detained by federal immigration authorities after he applied for a driver’s privilege card.
Abdel Rababah went to get his driver’s privilege card from the Dummerston DMV in April 2014.
An investigation found that a DMV worker made a mark on his application that made it appear he had claimed legal presence in the United States. However, Rababah never made such a claim.
Rababah’s case was flagged to a DMV investigator, who reached out to ICE. That investigator set up an appointment for Rababah to come to the office to discuss some “discrepancies” and arranged for an ICE agent to be at the DMV at that time. Rababah was arrested, followed by deportation proceedings against him.
The settlement called for DMV to put in place policies for limiting when front-line staff can refer privilege card applications for investigation. Staff members who work at DMV counters and managers were also to be trained in those procedures.
Migrant Justice alleges that even after the DMV implemented policy reforms, officials “continued to share information about DPC applicants of color” with ICE.
“Recent public records requests confirm that DMV staff continues a pattern and practice of sharing information with ICE and Border Patrol motivated by a dislike of non-white individuals, and Latinos in particular,” the lawsuit stated.
“Records obtained via a public records request in 2018 show that DMV continued to respond to ICE inquiries,” the filing added, “voluntarily providing ICE with confidential information including photos.”
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