Florida sheriff detains US citizen for deportation

In December 2018, Florida citizen Peter Sean Brown filed a federal lawsuit against the Monroe County Sheriff's offices for arresting and detaining him for three weeks claiming he was an illegal alien from Jamaica.  Even though Brown offered to show the sheriff his birth certificate and explained he had been wrongfully detained 20 years before and the jail's own records listed his birthplace as Philadelphia, PA, the sheriff relied on a form sent by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Brown had turned himself in for a probation violation after testing positive for marijuana; ICE tagged him as an illegal alien after the sheriff faxed the agency his fingerprints. His three-week detention cost him his job. A 2013 study from Syracuse University found that over four years ICE mistakenly detained more than 800 US citizens, one for more than three years.

https://www.courthousenews.com/lawsuit-details-mistaken-attempt-to-deport-u-s-citizen/

Writer: Izzy Kapnick

Publication: Courthouse News

Publication date: 2018-12-05