RALEIGH -- More than two dozen members of a Raleigh church are facing deportation after a traffic stop in Louisiana that their supporters say was illegal racial profiling rather than reasonable suspicion.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice plans to file a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of members of the Buen Pastor church.
The group, which is representing 22 of 24 accused illegal immigrant members of the church in Charlotte Immigration Court, contends that the proceedings should be thrown out because the April 2010 traffic stop that led to them was illegally conducted from the moment federal Customs and Border Protection agents pulled three vans over late at night outside Lake Charles, La.
"Where they were stopped is about 500 miles from the international border," said Elizabeth Simpson, the coalition lawyer taking the church members' case. "The agents couldn't possibly have had reasonable suspicion to pull them over lawfully."
Were they illegal aliens?
The government says 24 members of the church are illegal immigrants. Simpson, the attorney for 22 of the 24, disputes that accusation without specifying the church members' immigration status, saying the government's claim hasn't been proved.
The two church members who aren't being represented by the group have other lawyers.
Simpson has filed a motion in immigration court to have the case thrown out. Among her arguments is that the federal agency's field manual requires three conditions for a lawful extended border search, including "reasonable certainty that the vehicle/person crossed the border," which Simpson contends is impossible given the distance of Lake Charles from the U.S. border with Mexico.
The federal government has opposed the motion, and the next court date is scheduled for Sept. 22. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman in New Orleans declined to comment, saying the case is still open.
The church members and their supporters contend that they were pulled over simply because they're Latino and that after being detained they were subjected to ridicule by federal agents. The group also says its members were denied their legal rights to make phone calls or contact lawyers during detention.
"They just said we were suspicious, that we were suspicious people," said Jeremias Villar, one of the church members.
The incident occurred early on April 15, 2010, when three vans and several private vehicles from Buen Pastor were returning to North Carolina from a ceremony in Houston.
In a complaint expected to be filed with the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Thursday, members of the church group say they were mocked and derided by customs agents.
"They were also subject to insults based on their ethnicity, and the congregants perceived that they had been targeted based on Latino appearance ... and there was no reason for them to be pulled over," reads a draft copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
Supporters of the church members were planning to hold a candlelight vigil Thursday night at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh.
