Two Motel 6 locations in Arizona have been racially profiling and coordinating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have undocumented immigrant guests arrested, attorneys allege in an explosive Phoenix New Times investigation. When front desk staff at one location asked Manuel Rodriguez-Juarez for identification, “he handed over the only thing he had—a Mexican voter ID card.” Six hours later, ICE was at his motel room door:
A Phoenix New Times review of court records found that between February and August, ICE agents made at least 20 arrests at Motel 6s, showing up roughly every two weeks. (Since many of the documents we reviewed contained only vague details about where ICE encountered an individual, the actual number is likely even higher.)
All took place at one of two Motel 6 locations: 4130 North Black Canyon Highway or 1530 North 52nd Drive. Both are in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. New Times was unable to find records indicating that ICE conducted arrests at other local motels during this same time period.
According to the report, Motel 6 management declined to comment, directing Phoenix New Times to a corporate hotline.
Staff, though, were much more forthcoming about events: “Unofficially … employees at both locations said it was standard practice to share guest information with ICE. ‘We send a report every morning to ICE—all the names of everybody that comes in,’ one front-desk clerk explained. ‘Every morning at about 5 o’clock, we do the audit and we push a button and it sends it to ICE.’”
“One thing that we do know: Motel 6 is extremely enthusiastic about cooperating with law enforcement, and, elsewhere in the country, has been criticized by the ACLU for sharing guest lists with local police”:
Is that happening in Phoenix?
“On occasion and through informal contacts, various hotels and motels have shared their guest lists with officers,” Phoenix Police department spokesperson Jonathan Howard wrote in an email.
He declined to specify whether that included the two Motel 6 locations where recent ICE raids have taken place.
The Phoenix New Times states that in about a third of cases, “court documents say that ICE encountered a suspect during a ‘knock and talk,’” meaning ICE showed up to rooms without a search warrant, knocked on the door, and asked to come in.
Federal immigration agents have been shown to take advantage of undocumented immigrants who aren’t aware that they can deny entry to an officer who does not have a warrant. Once they allow them through the door, they’re arrested:
Cintia de Leon was supposed to pick up her husband and nephew from the Motel 6 at 4130 North Black Canyon Highway at 7:30 a.m. on August 10. But according to her husband, four ICE officers arrived first. They knocked on the door and asked for her nephew, Jose Escobar Tovar, whose name the room was under.
“He asked, 'How did you find me here?' de Leon recalled her husband telling her in his phone call from detention. "And they said, ‘You know what, you don’t have the right to talk.’”
The ICE officers then asked de Leon’s husband, 36-year-old Jose Granados Sanchez, if he had citizenship documents. He said no, and they arrested both of them. Escobar Tovar was deported three weeks ago and de Leon’s husband remains in an immigrant detention center in Eloy.
Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokesperson for ICE’s Phoenix division: “I wouldn’t be able to confirm how we are getting our information. Those are investigative techniques that we wouldn’t be able to talk about.”
Yeah, we know exactly the kind of “investigative techniques” ICE has been taking since Donald Trump unshackled them after taking office, including using children as bait to arrest undocumented family members and stalking immigrants seeking protective orders against abusers at courthouses. And now, motel patrons, allegedly.
As the ACLU’s Cecilia Wang tweeted: “They'll leave the light on—for ICE and police.”