LOS ANGELES – Sharon Arlanza Yost, a 33-year-old Filipina based in San Diego, is suing the United States government for negligence, false imprisonment and for negligent and intentional infliction of distress.
Yost claims that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wrongfully imprisoned her from May to December 2011. She also alleges that ICE officials then filed administrative proceedings to try and revoke her citizenship, after she filed charges for false imprisonment and emotional distress.
ICE is a sub-agency under the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Court documents dated October 18, 2013 did not specify any amount in the lawsuit.
“Ms. Yost requests relief … [for] compensatory damages in an amount to be proven at trial,” Yost’s lawyers wrote.
However, a November 4 Balitang America report said that Yost is filing for $2 million in damages.
Negligence and wrongful imprisonment
In 2010, Yost pleaded guilty to charges of methamphetamine possession, which led to her eventual arrest on May 14, 2011.
According to a San Diego Reader report, Yost was arrested after federal officials concluded that she was a non-citizen and was due for deportation because of her drug possession conviction.
However, Yost immigrated to the US as a child in 1991. Her Filipina mother married to a US Navy serviceman in 1985.
Yost, who was then a legal permanent resident, was “automatically” granted full citizenship rights in 1993, court documents said.
“Under former INA § 321(a), 8 USC. § 1432(a), Ms. Yost automatically acquired US citizenship on April 28, 1993, the day she satisfied the third and final requirement of the statute. Such acquisition of citizenship is automatic by operation of law and does not depend on submission of an Application for Citizenship (Form N-600) or formal recognition by DHS,” Yost’s lawyers said in the suit.
Due to this, attorneys argue that the 2011 arrest warrant for Yost’s deportation was deemed invalid.
Lawyers said in the suit that prior to issuing a warrant and making the decision to send officers to arrest Yost, ICE officers “failed to review the agency’s files to determine whether she was a US citizen, and thus, whether they had the authority to arrest her at all.”
Lawyers added that ICE officials further complicated their mistake by “failing to adequately and expeditiously investigate her citizenship claim after Ms. Yost repeatedly told them she was a US citizen.”
Balitang America reported that when Yost produced a Certificate of Citizenship, officials who supervised over her detention alleged that the document was fraudulently obtained.
Apparent vindication
According to lawyers, Yost was told by ICE officials on Dec. 7, 2011 that she would be released based on her citizenship claim at 5pm later that day. Less than 10 minutes later, she was told by ICE that she would be “released on the streets” as soon as possible. They also added that ICE allegedly denied Yost’s request to use a phone to call for someone to pick her up.
The lawsuit went on to claim that nine days after Yost’s release, US Citizenship and Immigration Service issued a Certificate of Citizenship which listed April 28, 1993 as the date that Yost became a US citizen. Lawyers argued that the certificate effectively confirmed that Yost’s detention was unlawful.
The lawsuit also points to a 2012 Social Security Administration document that “acknowledged that Ms. Yost was falsely incarcerated at CCA for 7 months.” The same document also noted that Yost “is a US citizen” and “has a diabetes.”
“On information and belief, DHS officers re-reviewed Ms. Yost’s citizenship status in response to the administrative FTCA complaint she filed on August 21, 2012, presumably in retaliation for filing that complaint and to avoid liability under the FTCA,” the lawsuit said.
According to Balitang America, the government is expected to respond to the lawsuit in December.
(With reports from Balitang America and San Diego Reader)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend November 9-12, 2013 Sec A pg.1)
