A Springfield man is working with the ACLU of Ohio to sue seven Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for what he claims is retaliation that violates his First Amendment rights to record officers in public.
Springfield resident Sean Moorman is a volunteer ICE watcher, who monitors the public activities of immigration agents. ICE watchers take pictures or videos from a distance.
For weeks Moorman has been taking pictures and videoing ICE agents as they apprehend Haitian immigrants.
His attorney David Carey is with the ACLU of Ohio. He said Moorman is motivated by compassion.
"He sees his neighbors being taken away, and he's concerned about what's happening to them," Carey said.
According to the lawsuit, Moorman said his actions have sparked repeated menacing and intimidating retaliation from masked agents.
WYSO reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. In an email response the agency said, "ICE is aware of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU in Ohio and is reviewing appropriate next steps in coordination with the Department of Justice.”
In late August, Moorman photographed several ICE agents in a parking lot. Per Moorman, they got back into their SUV’s, and attempted to box him in. Finally one officer gestured to Moorman to follow him. Carey said Moorman complied and another officer followed him.
"The ICE vehicles went to his house. He called his wife who was at home and she was terrified," Carey said. "One of the officers waved out the window to get Sean's attention and then pointed at his house, then took some pictures, pictures of the house, pictures of his wife's car in the driveway, and then slowly drove away. And then the other officer who was following behind Sean did the same, slowed down, took some pictures, as if to say, 'we know where you live'."
According to Carey, the agents are infringing on Moorman’s First Amendment rights to record law enforcement activities in public.
"The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Sean's right to record ICE, to monitor what they're doing in public, which is what he does, peacefully, lawfully," Carey said. "A number of agents have harassed or intimidated him in what we would describe as an escalating campaign designed to get him to stop doing what he's doing."
Moorman's lawsuit asks the court to identify the seven ICE agents. It also requests an emergency temporary restraining order to prevent ICE agents from intimidating Moorman.
The case is being heard in Dayton before Justice Michael Newman in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
