Man almost deported to Jamaica, files lawsuit against Florida cop
FLORIDA, United States – A man has filed a lawsuit against a Florida sheriff whom he claims wrongly detained him and almost had him deported to Jamaica.
In 2018, Peter Sean Brown was detained on a probation violation at the Monroe County Jail. It is reported that while jailed, Brown learned that the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office had received a removal order for him from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to Brown’s lawyer, despite Brown’s pleas to look into the possibility of misidentification, the sheriff’s office was unyielding.
The ICE removal order had Brown set to be deported to Jamaica, a country Brown said he had visited just once on a cruise.
“I would never have thought that I was going to be three days from deportation to an area that I went to on a cruise once,” Brown told US media.
Brown alleges that while in custody, the jail staffers mocked him in a Jamaican accent, telling him that “everything was gonna be alright.”
Following weeks in lock-up, and with several appeals ignored, Brown was reportedly transferred to an ICE facility in Miami. It was there that an immigration officer agreed to look at his birth certificate and realised he was actually a US citizen.
Brown’s lawyer argued that the sheriff’s action in holding Brown for ICE was a violation of the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Andrew Jolly, who is representing Sheriff Ramsay, has since indicated that ICE had bad information and that the sheriff had nothing to do with it.
Brown is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-profit human rights organisation.