Canales v. Caw
| Decision Date | 04 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil Case No. 1:19-cv-03383-SAG |
| Citation | 552 F.Supp.3d 534 |
| Parties | Jose Ricardo VILLALTA CANALES, Plaintiff, v. Officer Joseph CAW, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Clayton D. LaForge, Pro Hac Vice, James A. Tomberlin, Pro Hac Vice, L. Allison Herzog, Pro Hac Vice, Sarah A. Tomkowiak, Pro Hac Vice, James Christian Word, Latham and Watkins LLP, Emily A. Gunston, Pro Hac Vice, Hannah E.M. Lieberman, Washington Lawer's Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Roger L. Wolfe, Jr., Office of the Attorney General Office of the Attorney General - MD Dept. of Nat. Res., Annapolis, MD, for Defendants.
Jose Ricardo Villalta Canales ("Plaintiff") sued Officers Joseph Caw, Lakeram Chhaturam, and Michael Sullivan, as well as the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police, and the State of Maryland (collectively, "Defendants"), alleging that he was the victim of an unlawful seizure and arrest. ECF 1. Presently pending is Plaintiff's Motion for U Visa Certification, ECF 50. Defendants have responded to the Motion, ECF 54, and Plaintiff has replied, ECF 55. After review of those filings, no hearing is necessary. See Loc. R. 105.8 (D. Md. 2021). For the reasons that follow, Plaintiff's Motion is Denied.
On August 27, 2019, Plaintiff was detained by three Department of Natural Resources police officers while he assisted a relative with cutting down a tree without the required tree expert license. Following this incident, Plaintiff filed a Complaint on November 25, 2019, alleging (among other harms) violations of his constitutional rights for unlawful search and seizure, proscribed by the Fourth Amendment. ECF 1. While he did not dispute his lack of a license, he asserted that the officers subsequently and improperly detained him while they investigated whether he violated civil immigration laws. Id.
Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint, but the Court denied that motion on April 3, 2020. ECF 35, 36. In doing so, the Court explained that, "[a]bsent express direction or authorization by federal statute or federal officials, state and local law enforcement officers may not detain or arrest an individual solely based on known or suspected civil violations of federal immigration law." ECF 35 at 11 (quoting Santos v. Frederick Cty. Bd. of Comm'rs , 725 F.3d 451, 465 (4th Cir. 2013) ). Though the Court acknowledged that, following discovery, the Officers "may be able to show" that federal officials directed them to detain Plaintiff, ECF 35 at 13, n.2, the Complaint did not allege as much, id. at 12. Thus, accepting the facts as alleged, id. at 6, the Complaint survived dismissal.
Following this ruling, the parties entered into settlement discussions. This Court has been informed that they ultimately agreed to settle the case. As part of the settlement, Defendants reportedly agreed to implement certain changes in how they handle immigration-related issues that arise in the course of enforcing Maryland's natural resources laws. ECF 54 at 2. Defendants also have represented that they agreed to pay Plaintiff a monetary settlement, which was approved by the Maryland Board of Public Works and is currently being implemented. Id.
Non-immigrant victims of certain enumerated classes of crimes may apply for a U visa, which grants temporary immigration status for victims of certain crimes who have information that may be helpful in the investigation of those crimes. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U). In order to be eligible for a U visa, the alien must show that he or she:
... has been helpful, is being helpful, or is likely to be helpful to a Federal, State, or local law enforcement official, to a Federal, State, or local prosecutor, to a Federal or State judge, to the Service, or to other Federal, State, or local authorities investigating or prosecuting criminal activity described in clause (iii).
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U)(i)(III).
Clause (iii) of the statute enumerates the types of crimes that support a U visa application by the victim:
rape; torture; trafficking; incest; domestic violence; sexual assault; abusive sexual contact; prostitution; sexual exploitation; stalking; female genital mutilation; being held hostage; peonage; involuntary servitude; slave trade; kidnapping; abduction; unlawful criminal restraint; false imprisonment; blackmail; extortion; manslaughter; murder; felonious assault; witness tampering; obstruction of justice; perjury; fraud in foreign labor contracting (as defined in section 1351 of Title 18); or attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit any of the above mentioned crimes.
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(U)(iii).
The United States Citizenship and Immigration and Services ("USCIS") has sole jurisdiction over U visa petitions, but before an applicant can submit an application to USCIS he must first obtain "a certification from a Federal, State, or local law enforcement official, prosecutor, judge, or other Federal, State, or local authority investigating criminal activity described in § 1101(a)(15)(U)(iii)." 8 U.S.C. § 1184(p)(1). Though federal judges do not investigate or prosecute crimes, the statute explicitly contemplates their issuance of U visa certifications. The certifying authority must confirm that the applicant " ‘has been helpful, is being helpful, or is likely to be helpful’ in the investigation or prosecution of [the] criminal activity." Id.
Federal regulations interpreting the U visa statutory regime specify that the statutory term "investigation or prosecution" should be interpreted broadly:
Investigation or prosecution refers to the detection or investigation of a qualifying crime or criminal activity, as well as to the prosecution, conviction, or sentencing of the perpetrator of the qualifying crime or criminal activity.
8 C.F.R. § 214.14 ; see also 72 Fed.Reg. 53014, 53020 ().
Furthermore, the statutory term "helpful" is similarly meant to be construed broadly to include the very early stages of an investigation:
The requirement was written with several verb tenses, recognizing that an alien may apply for U nonimmigrant status at different stages of the investigation or prosecution. By allowing an individual to petition for U nonimmigrant status upon a showing that he or she may be helpful at some point in the future, USCIS believes that Congress intended for individuals to be eligible for U nonimmigrant status at the very early stages of an investigation.
A district court's decision whether to issue a U visa certification is discretionary. See, e.g. , Ordonez Orosco v. Napolitano , 598 F.3d 222, 226-27 (5th Cir. 2010) (); Trevino v. Benton Cty., Ark. , 578 F. App'x 626, 627 (8th Cir. 2014) (same).
The central question here is whether Plaintiff's allegations in this civil suit, which have not and will not be assessed on their merits due to a recent settlement between the parties, can validly be construed as being "helpful" to an "investigation or prosecution" when there is no pending investigation or prosecution of the alleged qualifying crimes. Plaintiff suggests that the term "investigation or prosecution" is so broad as to encompass a mere "prima facie showing" of a qualifying crime, a showing which he asserts he has made here by virtue of the evidence he has presented of Fourth Amendment violations. ECF 50-1 at 5-8. Defendants, meanwhile, argue that Plaintiff has not provided facts sufficient to establish any criminal violation, nor can he point to any criminal investigation or prosecution. ECF 54 at 4-7. That said, they acknowledge that Plaintiff's civil complaint "has been helpful in revealing deficiencies in how the [Maryland] Natural Resources Police handles certain immigration-related issues" and that the parties’ settlement agreement includes provisions that will help address those deficiencies—Defendants urge this Court to only grant certification if it finds that this sort of "helpfulness," removed from any finding of criminality, satisfies the U visa certification statutory criteria. Id. at 8-9.
As an initial matter, the parties have not cited, and this Court has not identified, any Fourth Circuit or District of Maryland precedent on point. That said, a number of district courts elsewhere have addressed the question of U visa certification in the context of civil suits divorced from any criminal investigation and have, largely, come to the same conclusion: U visa certification is not appropriate where the court's only role has been to oversee a civil proceeding brought by an applicant and there is no pending investigation or prosecution of the alleged qualifying criminal activity at issue in the civil case. See Mercado-Guillen v. McAleenan , No. 18-CV-00727-HSG, 2019 WL 1995331, at *3 (N.D. Cal. May 6, 2019) (). Just two courts have deviated from this norm, granting U visa certification on the basis of a mere "prima facie showing" by civil plaintiffs that they were victims of a qualifying crime, irrespective of the fact that there was no criminal investigation or prosecution ongoing at the time of the certification decision. See Villegas v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville , 907 F. Supp. 2d 907, 912 (M.D. Tenn. 2012) (...
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