Immigration lawyer critical of ICE has phone seized at MA airport, lawsuit says

A Massachusetts immigration attorney is without his business phone after agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations seized the device for a search at Boston Logan International Airport, according to a federal lawsuit. Inside the airport on Sept. 28, three uniformed CBP agents and one HSI agent waited for Andrew Lattarulo to exit his flight from Aruba, the lawsuit says. Once Lattarulo reached the gate, they surrounded him and said they were conducting a border search, according to the complaint. The agents were seizing his phone but refused to share why, the lawsuits says. Lattarulo, who represents thousands of clients in immigration cases, was warned his device would be physically taken if he refused to hand it over. Now he is suing the government to get his phone back, as his device contains sensitive information about his clients and their immigration proceedings. One day after he filed the lawsuit, a federal judge granted his motion for a temporary restraining order, ruling on Oct. 3 that agents cannot search or continue to search Lattarulo’s phone. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, in granting the temporary restraining order, also ruled that the government cannot use any data gathered from Lattarulo’s device. Lattarulo argues his phone was taken because of his immigration-related work and public criticisms of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s actions carried out under the Trump administration. He speaks out against what he believes are illegal immigration tactics on Instagram, via an account that is popular with the Boston-area immigrant community, according to his lawsuit. In videos shared to the platform, he also shares information on immigrant rights. “Public criticism of our government is protected speech under the First Amendment,” Mary Lemay and Patrick Hanley, attorneys representing Lattarulo, , said in a statement shared with McClatchy News on Oct. 9. “We initiated this suit to protect not only Attorney Lattarulo’s constitutional rights, but also those of his clients.”