Davino Watson was imprisoned as a deportable immigrant for 1,273 days, despite having U.S. citizenship. Now a court says he is not eligible for $82,500 in damages he was awarded.
Jamaican-born Davino Watson became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002, at the age of 17. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to selling cocaine. When his sentence ended in 2008, ICE arrested him and began deportation proceedings.
Watson, then 23 years old, told the immigration officers that he was a U.S. citizen. He told jail officials that he was a U.S. citizen. He told a judge that he was a U.S. citizen. He even provided the name and phone number of his U.S. citizen father. But Watson had only a partial high school education, no legal training, and no lawyer because there is no right to an attorney in immigration court. So everyone ignored him, no one called his father, and ICE held this U.S. citizen in custody as a deportable alien for 1,273 days--nearly 3½ years.
To be clear: Yes, it is illegal for U.S. immigration authorities to hold American citizens in detention.
In November of 2011, ICE finally released Watson “into rural Alabama (where he knew nobody), without money, and without being told the reason for his release.” His deportation proceedings continued for more than another year before ICE finally conceded that Watson was a U.S. citizen.
Watson sued the government in federal court for false imprisonment. In 2016, the court awarded him $82,500, criticizing ICE’s conduct as a “legal disaster,” “mindless failure,” “carelessness,” and “easily avoidable error.”
“Plaintiff was badly treated by government employees. He deserves a letter of apology from the United States in addition to damages. But the court is not empowered to order this courtesy.”
The government appealed, and in 2017 the appellate court threw out Watson’s award in its entirety. The court did not question any of the underlying facts, but held that the two-year statute of limitations on Watson’s claim for false imprisonment had expired back in 2010, while he was still in ICE custody. Without a lawyer.
“It is harsh to place the burden on Watson to file a claim for damages while he is in immigration detention and fighting to prevent his deportation.”
But the court did it anyway. Too bad.
