Sandusky Ohio Border Patrol Trial to Begin June 16
Sandusky Ohio Border Patrol Trial to Begin June 16
Trial is scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court in Toledo, Ohio on June 16 in the case of Roberto Muniz against the United States Border Patrol. The trial is scheduled to last for eight days. Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (ABLE) and the law firm of Murray and Murray are co-counsel for the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs contend that since the Border Patrol's Sandusky Bay Station opened in approximately February 2009, its agents have engaged in a pattern and practice of targeting persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Plaintiffs assert that a combination of statistical and anecdotal evidence will show that the Border Patrol agents' enforcement activity deprives persons of Hispanic descent of their equal protection rights under the Constitution and is tantamount to racial profiling.
The Plaintiffs in this lawsuit are the Immigrant Worker Project (IWP) and the Farm Labor Organization Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC). IWP's mission is to assist immigrants living in rural Ohio to have control of their social and economic lives, through work in several programmatic areas including economic literary programs, citizenship classes, Spanish literacy classes for workers who speak indigenous (pre-Colombian) languages, and education around violence in the family. FLOC's immediate constituency is migrant workers in the agricultural industry, but FLOC is also involved with immigrant workers, Latinos, local communities, and national and international coalitions concerned with justice.
ABLE is a non-profit law firm that provides free legal services to low-income residents in 32 counties of northwest and west central Ohio and to agricultural workers throughout Ohio. Murray & Murray Co., L.P.A. is a private, family owned law firm based in Sandusky, Ohio representing individuals and businesses in critical matters.
