RUTLAND – Four years after Horacio Morales Gabriel went to the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles in Rutland seeking a driver’s license, he is pressing ahead in his discrimination lawsuit against the state.
The lawsuit claims the Rutland County man who was born in Guatemala and referred to in the filing as Morales, was brought into a room at the DMV office in Rutland in 2015 and questioned by police and an immigration enforcement officer about “Guatemalan drug dealers.”
“The Vermont DMV discriminated against Mr. Morales based on his race, color, or national origin when it facilitated ICE’s and the State Trooper’s detention and questioning of Mr. Morales,” the lawsuit stated.
In the legal action, which was filed in April 2018 in Rutland County Superior civil court, Morales is seeking unspecified damages against the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is not named as a defendant in the filing.
A hearing in the case took place last week dealing mostly with scheduling and witness issues, and no rulings were made. Morales did not attend that hearing.
Kate Thomas, a Rutland attorney representing Morales, declined comment following the hearing.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the DMV, filed a response to the lawsuit. That response, in part, stated, “Admitted that Plaintiff was shown to a room where a DMV detective and an ICE officer were waiting. Otherwise, denied.”
The filing also listed defenses to the lawsuit, including that Morales’ damages “to the extent he suffered any, were the result of his own conduct.”
The attorney general’s office, in a statement Monday, said it has a “statutory duty to defend lawsuits brought against State agencies, such as the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles.”
The statement added, “As always, it is our hope we can reach a mutually amicable resolution to this matter.”
ICE spokesperson John Mohan said by email Monday that he could not comment on the matter since the litigation remains pending.
The lawsuit brought by Morales specifically alleged that DMV violated the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Law.
According to the lawsuit, under that law, a place that serves the public cannot discriminate against a person because of “race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”
The lawsuit stated that in September 2015 Morales applied for a learner’s permit at the DMV in Rutland, and he provided the requested Social Security card, bank statements, and a pay stub.
Morales, according to the filing, did not pass his first attempt at the written exam and the DMV provided him with another appointment to retake the test.
When Morales arrived for that second exam, the lawsuit stated, a DMV employee asked him to accompany her to the back of the building.
“The DMV employee,” according to the lawsuit, “showed Mr. Morales to an office where a State Trooper, a detective, and an officer from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration, and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were waiting.”
Morales, the lawsuit stated, was “detained” by those officers for about two hours.
“The officers demanded information about drug dealers,” the filing stated. “The officers demanded Mr. Morales’ fingerprints … One officer positioned at the door did not move, so that Mr. Morales did not feel he could leave the interrogation.”
The officer, according to the lawsuit, stated that they had run his Social Security number and it came up as belonging to an Ohio resident, and then confiscated the Social Security card.
“When the ICE officer and State Trooper finally decided that Mr. Morales did not have information they demanded,” the lawsuit stated, “they told him not to return to the DMV without a Social Security card or a Green Card.”
According to the lawsuit, while Morales was at the DMV to apply for operator’s learner’s permit, he was also eligible for a driver’s privilege card, which are available to Vermont residents with certain proof of residency but don’t require proof of “legal presence” in the United States.
That proof of Vermont residency, the lawsuit stated, can be met without a green card or Social Security card.
The lawsuit does not name the law enforcement and immigration officers or DMV employees.
Morales’ case contains similar allegations as raised in a separate federal lawsuit brought by the advocacy group Migrant Justice claiming the state DMV employees and federal ICE agents targeted its organization’s leaders and members to get back at them for their activism.
That lawsuit filed late last year alleged that in 2014 the DMV started providing information from undocumented Vermont residents’ applications for driver’s privilege cards to federal authorities and “scheduling appointments to facilitate ICE arrests.”
Also, 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 in April 2014.
The settlement in that case 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.
