FLOC suit vs. Ohio state troopers
Farm workers win ruling on racial profiling
By Leslie Feinberg
At a moment when racist profiling appears to be the national
policy of the Bush administration, the Farm Labor Organizing
Committee has won an important and precedent-setting civil
rights victory.
The Equal Justice Foundation of Columbus, Ohio, had filed a
class-action lawsuit in 1996 on behalf of FLOC, a union
representing migrant and seasonal farm workers in the northwest
region of the state.
The lawsuit was spurred on after State Highway Patrol
troopers pulled over Jose Aguilar and Irma Esparza near Toledo
for a minor violation--an alleged faulty headlight. Troopers
reportedly seized the two Latinos' valid green cards,
confiscating them for four days without giving them a receipt
or information about how to recover the critically needed
documents.
The legal suit maintained that the troopers had violated the
farm workers' constitutional rights by interrogating them about
their immigration status and taking away their documents solely
because they were Latinos.
The troopers claimed immunity. But after long years of
pressing the case, FLOC won a decision in the United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Oct. 21. The appeals
court upheld a district court ruling that the troopers were not
immune to prosecution in racial profiling lawsuits. The appeals
court decision added that state police could not legally
confiscate green cards without probable cause.
The case now goes back to the district court.
FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez expressed elation about
the decision. He said, "After dragging on for six years, this
landmark civil rights case is showing true progress. The
federal appeals court has clearly stated that state troopers
are not above the law. Now that we have triumphed over their
delaying tactics, we can bring this matter to a just
resolution, which will hopefully result in sweeping changes in
law enforcement policy."
Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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