New York will have to pay $92 million in damages to 20,000 illegally detained immigrants

At 58, Frank Barker can say that he has won the fight against the city of New York, almost 15 years after the authorities detained him on the orders of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which led to him being incarcerated much longer than his established release date. He arrived at the age of nine from Barbados, got involved with drugs and finally ended up in prison. On the day in 2008 when he was supposed to have completed his sentence, Barker had to spend another whole year in a detention center. Now, like 20,000 other migrants, he cannot help but feel satisfaction after the class-action lawsuit they filed a decade ago and which was resolved this Wednesday by a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

“As someone who has lived in fear of ICE and lost a year of my life to detention, I applaud this lawsuit and encourage anyone who has experienced similar treatment or has a family member or friend who has been affected by this to take steps to be included in this class action,” Barker, a Bronx resident, said in a news release.

Between April 1, 1997, and December 21, 2012, thousands of migrants were held for days, weeks, or months longer than they should have been. New York was not the sanctuary city it later became, and authorities worked hand in hand with ICE, sending people directly from prison to be deported. From October 2012 to September 2013, the Department of Corrections handed over more than 3,000 detainees to ICE.

Some of the migrants involved in the lawsuit — one of the largest against New York City — were in police custody or serving short prison sentences. ICE asked New York City officials to hold them for up to 48 hours while it considered them for deportation proceedings. But time ran out. Reports say the detainees were held in total for more than 166,000 days, or 454 years, from their scheduled release dates. The city’s Law Department said in a statement that officials had “operated under the assumption that compliance with ICE detainers was mandated under federal law.”

Now, under a court settlement, New York City, which had been denying any responsibility, must pay $92.5 million in damages to thousands of illegally detained migrants, some of whom remain in the United States and others have gone on to countries such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Ecuador, Cuba, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras and Guyana.

The settlement comes after Oscar Onadia, an immigrant from Burkina Faso, in Africa, filed a lawsuit in 2010. Two years earlier, Onadia was driving without a license on the streets of New York. He was stopped by authorities and sentenced to five days in jail at Riker’s Island. When he completed his sentence and went to post his $1 bail, authorities denied him bail after telling him they had received an ICE detainer. Even though the warrant said Onadia should be held for no more than 48 hours, authorities did not release him until January 23, 2009, 42 days after he was supposed to have been out of jail for driving without a license.

In 2017, Onadia’s lawsuit became a class-action suit seeking to repair the damages of thousands more migrants. Although Onadia died in early 2024 without being able to see the end of his legal battle, The New York Times reported that his wife will receive $25,000 in compensation from the city.

Debra L. Greenberger, a partner at the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, which brought the suit, said in the statement that “the settlement provides a measure of justice for people who were forced to be incarcerated in often horrific conditions when they should have been allowed to go home.” She also said that this settlement should serve as a reminder that all individuals have the right to due process of law. With the settlement, the more than 20,000 affected migrants will be able to seek compensation. Some could obtain tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the length of their detention and the damage caused.

The lawyers have said they face a long road ahead, trying to track down the thousands of migrants involved in the process. Some of them may have already died. Greenberger told The New York Times that his team was aware that “it is going to be hard to find people.”

Although then-mayor Bill de Blasio signed a law in 2014 that prevents the city from cooperating with ICE, the fear that New York authorities will facilitate the deportation of millions of immigrants that the Trump administration intends to carry out has gripped many families. Even more so since Mayor Eric Adams met with Tom Homan, the next “border czar,” and promised to “go after immigrants who are committing crimes.” Several organizations are demanding that the City Council not ignore the city laws that limit the cooperation of the Police Department and the Department of Corrections with ICE agents.

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