AZ Motel 6 Gets Discrimination Lawsuit After Voluntarily Handing Out 'Latino-Sounding' Names to ICE

AZ Motel 6 Gets Discrimination Lawsuit After Voluntarily Handing Out ‘Latino-Sounding’ Names to ICE

At least two Motel 6 locations in Arizona are reporting their guest lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, which has lead in at least 20 arrests of undocumented immigrants, according to New York Times.

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“This was implemented at the local level without the knowledge of senior management,” the G6’s Director of Public Relations & Marketing, Raiza Rehkoff wrote in an email. The company claimed they were unaware of the activity and underwent heavy investigation around the incident.

In a report by the Phoenix New Times, “They have heard that ICE is paying $200 per person for the front-desk clerk to report.” With 20 being arrested it brings the payout to at least 4,000. While Motel 6 has yet to respond to direct questions about the guest and employees, both locations told the New York Times it is part of their daily routine. “We send a report every morning to ICE—all the names of everybody that comes in,” said one front-desk clerk to the New York Times. “Every morning at about 5 o’clock, we do the audit, and we push a button, and it sends it to ICE.”

However, on Wednesday Attorney General Bob Ferguson said his office launched its own investigation after discovering that “disturbing and unlawful” handovers of personal guest information were routine at several corporate-owned Motel 6 locations in the state of Washington. Ferguson said Motel 6 staffers told investigators that “ICE agents circled any Latino or Latina-sounding names on the guest registry, and returned to their vehicles” to run background checks.

The Attorney General added that Washington’s Supreme Court established that guest-registry information is private and Motel 6 violated the law each time it gave out private information.

ICE officials used names, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, license-plate numbers and room numbers of more than 9,000 guests in order to make arrests but Ferguson believes the number to be higher.

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The lawsuit is still under investigation in King County Superior Court in Seattle. Read more about it here.