Miranda rights questioned in ICE raid cases unfolding in Charlotte’s federal court
.jpg "The Charles R. Jonas Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse")
Three of at least 30 people arrested when Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided a Kings Mountain fire extinguisher plant last month will go home, a federal judge ruled, to their families in North Carolina.
During four Friday hearings for people arrested at Buckeye Fire Equipment Company, federal public defenders questioned if ICE agents read Miranda rights, and an agent revealed new details previously contained to sealed search warrants.
The proceedings parted the curtains on how Charlotte’s federal judges navigate immigration cases as U.S. attorneys enforce immigration laws under the Trump administration and the federal public defenders challenge the way detained immigrants are moving through court systems.
The four men who appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina Friday were charged with reentering the United States. At least eight of the 30 people detained at Buckeye Fire Equipment Company have been federally charged, according to court records.
Homeland Security Investigations agent Willie Caswell, while testifying Friday, said at least 100 agents came to the plant on June 25.
The Kings Mountain plant may have committed “rampant” identity theft, ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams previously told The Charlotte Observer. The agent Friday said they had a warrant to seize documents related to suspected identity theft, allowing them to arrest certain individuals.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson, in a statement to The Charlotte Observer, said Friday’s hearings “were part of a larger investigation into identity theft, illegal reentry into the United States after deportation, and other federal crimes.”
“We will continue to enforce those laws and support the integrity of our immigration system and the safety of our communities,” he said.
Kings Mountain detainees in court
Enrique Gil Rojano, a Buckeye Fire worker who now sat inside the courtroom in a two-tone inmate jumper, was not listed on the warrant agents used to search the building.
But Rojano, charged with reentering the country after being removed in 2005, was found hiding inside the plant and interviewed in a hallway. Court documents suggest he and another man ICE agents found at the plant used false identification documents to secure employment, but neither have been charged with that offense.
When assistant federal defender Elizabeth Gerber asked the agent if Rojano was read his Miranda rights in that hallway, he said he wasn’t sure. He was not present when another agent began interviewing him. But he was sure his colleague had followed the agencies’ orders and told the man he had the right to remain silent.
Gerber did not ask any more questions.
Immigrants’ flight risk in federal cases
Charlotte’s top federal public defender represented Arturo Albarras Altunar, the other man who may have used false documents to work at Buckeye Fire, according to court documents, but has not been charged with such.
Federal Public Defender John Baker, who for six years represented Guantanamo Bay detainees, argued against the government’s request to keep Altunar and the other men detained.
Prosecutors’ arguments on why he should be detained “almost entirely overlap” with inherent facts of any illegal immigrant’s case, he wrote in a motion. Their request “flies in the face” of the guardrails around pretrial detention, which is limited to cases involving crimes of violence, high-level felonies, drug-trafficking offenses, offenses that involve minor victims, firearms, destructive devices, or failing to register as a sex offender.
Prosecutors could only ask for detainment if they could prove the immigrants posed a high risk of fleeing if released.
Active ICE detainers for the men were irrelevant, Baker said, because they don’t show the men would voluntarily try to flee. And their ties to other countries did not show that risk, either. Altunar, his wife of 22 years, their three children, one grandchild and his church are all here in North Carolina.
Altunar and the other men had already come back to the country when they were told to stay out, Baker said. They are more likely to stay here than flee, Baker wrote in a motion filed late Thursday.
“You have decades of experience,” Baker, whose “We the People” socks peaked out of his suit pants, said to District Judge David Keesler. “Think of all the cases you’ve seen with high flight risk. This is not like those.”
And statistics support that, he said.
“Immigration cases have the lowest violation rate of any charges, with a failure to appear rate of less than one percent” inside the federal system, reads the motion Baker filed. In the Western District of North Carolina, only 3 out of 959 released individuals in immigration cases failed to appear last year.
Keesler said he wanted to probe further into “the weaker points of the government’s position,” mostly agreeing with Baker’s reasoning.
“When someone comes back, it’s because they want to be here, not there [in the country where they hold citizenship],” the judge said to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Smith.
Smith replied: “But he can’t be here. He’s not supposed to be here, and he’s not supposed to be working here.”
“My wife and I recently went to France,” Smith continued. “It was beautiful, we liked it, but we couldn’t have just stayed there.”
NC immigrants released with monitoring
Keesler released Altunar and two other men with similar cases — Luis Antonio Martinez Lopez and Alberto Perez Mendoza — under unsecured $25,000 bonds and electronic monitoring requirements. If they do not abide by the conditions set, like remaining at their home and returning for hearings, they will have to pay. Lopez and Mendoza’s cases did not show any evidence of use of false documents.
After signing documents saying he agreed to the conditions of his bond — and before U.S. marshals escorted him back into the court’s holding rooms — Lopez turned to the gallery and blew a kiss to his wife. She and their 3- and 5-year-old daughters are all U.S. citizens.
Rojano, the man found hiding inside the plant, will have another hearing to further discuss bond. For now, he will remain detained — a decision Keesler made after learning of a 1995 controlled substance charge and 2005 perjury charge.
Federal defenders asked to keep the men’s addresses off of probation documents. Assistant federal defender Taylor Goodnight said she was “concerned about federal agencies harassing clients.”
Keesler originally granted that request but said he felt the request dropped him into “uncharted waters.” He will consult case law and other judges before ruling on that, he said.
