By Staff Reporter
NORTH TONAWANDA — A routine traffic stop on Nash Road has become one of the first tests in Western New York of the state’s new limits on local police help with immigration enforcement.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office has confirmed it received a complaint about the Oct. 7 stop, in which a North Tonawanda police officer pulled over a roofing crew’s pickup truck and U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived almost at once and arrested three Mexican workers. The office is reviewing it, Investigative Post first reported.
Two of the men are now challenging their detention in federal court in Buffalo.
What happened on Nash Road
The three men worked for Milco Roofing and Construction, a Niagara County company. Around 7 p.m., a crew of four left a job site on Jesella Drive in a white pickup truck. Shortly after it turned onto Nash Road, a North Tonawanda officer, Noah Fox, pulled it over, saying the driver had failed to use a turn signal, according to Investigative Post. Police Chief Keith Glass said the officer also believed two men in the back seat weren’t wearing seat belts.
Border Patrol agents were on scene almost immediately. A crew member who is a lawful permanent resident, Diego Chavez, recorded video showing agents using a Taser on one man and holding him on the ground, according to Investigative Post. Mr. Glass said the driver tried to run and that Officer Fox caught him after a short chase. Border Patrol then took custody of all three men.
Mr. Glass told Investigative Post his department did not call the agents. “I’m assuming they were monitoring our radio traffic,” he said. “They just showed up as a secondary car to back my officer up. All we did was perform a traffic stop. That’s it.”
“Officer Fox wrote a couple, I think three, traffic citations. He gave them the tickets, and we were done, and Border Patrol took over from there,” Mr. Glass said.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson gave the same account. “Our agents patrolled through and assisted. They were not contacted by the NTPD,” the spokesperson said.
Why the crew doesn’t buy it
The crew and its employer have doubts. Jesus Garcia, who owns Milco with his wife, told Investigative Post that a police car drove past the job site several times that day. “He passed by like four or five times. The last time he stopped for three, four seconds, and I believe he got the license plate from the truck,” Mr. Garcia said.
“He was just waiting for us,” Mr. Chavez said.
Mr. Glass denied that, saying the officer was assigned to patrol that part of the city. He also said Border Patrol had told him its agents would be operating in the area that day, and that he passed that information along to the officer.
Janna Garcia, the company’s co-owner, filed the complaint with the attorney general. “Once [the officer] had them stopped, Border Patrol surrounded the vehicle,” she said. “The excessive force that was used, and the way the whole thing was executed is why I filed a complaint.”
What the law says
The state law at issue, General Municipal Law Section 996-a, says no local government employee “shall use the resources of such municipal government including, but not limited to, time spent while on duty” for “immigration enforcement purposes.” It bars local employees from sharing a person’s identifying information, including “place of employment,” with immigration authorities, and from questioning anyone “for the sole purpose of immigration enforcement.”
The law has exceptions. It doesn’t stop the sharing of citizenship or immigration-status information allowed under a federal statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1373, and it allows compliance with orders and warrants signed by federal judges. The section itself doesn’t spell out a penalty for breaking it.
That gap is what the men’s lawyer is pointing to. “If [North Tonawanda police] coordinated with [the Department of Homeland Security] that may violate the new law,” attorney Jonathan Langer told Investigative Post. “It’s unclear how New York can or does enforce the new law.”
The attorney general’s Office of Immigrant Trust appears to be finding out. Earlier this month it asked the City of Oswego for incident reports, body-worn camera footage and 911 calls about a Sept. 30 immigration operation there, WRVO reported. Oswego police had brought a ladder at agents’ request. “We plan to cooperate with the Attorney General’s inquiry and have retained outside legal counsel to assist us with that endeavor,” Oswego Mayor Robert Corradino said.
In federal court
On Oct. 12, Mr. Langer filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York on behalf of the driver, Salvio Martinez Gutierrez, and Ramon Pablo Vivanco. The Vivanco case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Meredith A. Vacca. The petitions argue the men are owed bond hearings, since they had never been arrested before and haven’t seen an immigration judge, according to Investigative Post, which reported that at least one man entered the country legally on a visa.
The county fight
The stop comes as Niagara County lawmakers weigh suing Albany over the same law, with a vote expected Tuesday, Oct. 20. The Chronicle reported Saturday on that proposed lawsuit.
What would settle it
The public record could answer most of the open questions. North Tonawanda could release Officer Fox’s body-camera video, the dispatch audio and the time-stamped radio log, which would show whether and when anyone told Border Patrol about the stop. The city could publish any written notice it got from Border Patrol that day, and adopt a written policy on what officers should do when federal agents show up at a local stop. The attorney general could make public the findings of its review, so every department in the region knows where the line is.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked Mayor Austin Tylec’s office for the body-camera footage and dispatch records and for comment from Mr. Glass. Any response will be added to this story.
Featured photo: North Tonawanda City Hall. Photo by DanielPenfield via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped.
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