A lawsuit was filed in federal court by the Southern Poverty law Center on Wednesday against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). The lawsuit alleges that over the Labor Day weekend, ICE harassed five US citizens of Mexican descent during an illegal immigration shakedown in Georgia. The civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center claims ICE, illegally detained, harassed and searched the Mexican-Americans' persons based only on their appearance in a raid on a chicken processing plant, violating the US citizens' Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. An ICE spokesman declined to comment on specific claims in the suit, but said of the accusations, they were "patently false."

The goal of the Southern Poverty Law Center is to certify the lawsuit as a class action. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, names ICE, its officials and the 30 agents who conducted the raid as defendants. The illegal immigrant population in Georgia has more doubled since 2000.

Sheryl Jones
Breakng Legal News.com
Staff Writer