Atlanta (AP) -Immigration authorities demand that landlords, rent applications, transmission of addresses, identification cards and other information about their tenants require a sign that the Trump administration focuses them to help with the urge to mass deportations.
Eric Teusink, a real estate lawyer in Atlanta, said that various customers recently received subpoenas who asked for complete files about tenants. A rental application can include working history, civil status and family relationships.
The two-pages 'information enforcement times of daily', which Teusink exclusively shared with the Associated Press, also requires information about other people who lived with the tenant. One, dated on May 1, is signed by an officer for the anti-fraudity of American citizenship and immigration services. However, it is not signed by a judge.
It is unclear how broad the subpoenas were published, but they could indicate a new front in the efforts of the administration to find people who are illegal in the country, many of whom were obliged to give authorities their American addresses as a condition for initially entering the country without a visa. President Donald Trump largely ended the temporary status for people who were allowed in the country among his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Experts wonder if landlords should pay
Some legal experts and real estate managers say that the requirements ask for serious legal questions, because they are not signed by a judge and that, if landlords restrain themselves, they can run the risk of violating the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.
Critics also say that landlords probably feel intimidated to meet something that a judge has not ordered, while the person whose information is asked may never know that their private data is in the hands of immigration authorities.
“The danger here is over condition,” says Stacy Seicshnaydre, a professor at the University of Tulane who studies housing law. “Only because a landlord receives a summons does not mean that it is a legitimate request.”
Ice officers have long been used subpoenas, signed by a desk supervisor to try to enter houses. Advocacy groups have set up the “Know Your Rights” campaign in which people are encouraged to refuse access if they are not signed by a judge.
The summons assessed by the AP is from USCIS 'fraud detection and directorate National Security, which, like ICE, is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Although it is not signed by a judge, it threatens that a judge can keep a landlord who can despise contempt from the court for not complying with.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, defended the use of summons against landlords without confirming whether they are being published.
“We are not going to comment on the tactics of law enforcement around ongoing investigations,” said McLaughlin. “However, it is incorrect to say that ICE summons can easily be ignored. ICE is authorized to obtain records or witnesses through specific administrative summons.
These requests are new to many landlords
Teusink said that many of his customers supervise multi -family homes and are used to receiving summons for other reasons, such as requests to transfer security images or to give local police access to a property as part of an investigation. But, he said, those requests are signed by a judge.
Teusink said his customers were confused by the last summons. After consultation with immigration lawyers, he concluded that compliance is optional. Unless signed by a judge, the letters are essentially only an officer who submits a request.
“It seemed like they were on a fish expedition,” Teusink said.
Jordana Roubicek Greenman in Boston, Jordana Roubicek Greenman, said that a landlord customer from him last month received a vague voicemail from an Ice officer asked that information about a tenant asked. Other local lawyers told her that their customers had received similar messages. She told her client that she shouldn't call back.
Anthony Luna, the CEO of Coastline Equity, a commercial and multifamily Property Management company that supervises around 1,000 units in the Los Angeles region, said that real estate managers started contact with him a few weeks ago in the concern of tenants who heard rumors about the Ice Sjessions. Most are not going to satisfy when they receive them.
“If they go after criminals, why don't they go through judicial documents?” Luna said. “Why do they need files from home provider?”
ICE SAVINGEN preceded Trump's first term of office, although according to Lindsay Nash they saw an important increase among him, according to Lindsay Nash, a professor of law to the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York, who has followed for years. However, they have rarely received landlords. State and local police were the most common recipients.
ICE can enforce the summons, but it should first submit a lawsuit to the federal court and have a judge signed with his enforcement – a step that the recipient of the summons could have pushed back, Nash said. She said that recipients often meet without telling the person whose data is announced.
“Many people see these summons, think they're officially looking, think that part of the language sounds threatening in them and therefore react, even when I have been overbroaded on the basis of what I can see, it seems like some of these summons,” she said.
