Anaya et al v. City of Fort Payne, Alabama

On September 20, 2018, five Latino men filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Fort Payne, Alabama, its police chief, and an officer. The plaintiffs, including Marlon Anaya and Santos Caal Chub, alleged that in early 2018 they were surrounded and detained by police at a Fort Payne gas station solely because of their Hispanic appearance. Officers questioned them about their immigration status without any reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and then handed them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The suit claimed the stop violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and constituted illegal racial profiling. The case drew attention to local police involvement in federal immigration enforcement in Alabama.

In 2022, the parties reached a settlement. The City of Fort Payne agreed to pay $270,000 to the plaintiffs and adopted new police policies that expressly prohibit officers from stopping, detaining, or arresting individuals based on actual or perceived immigration status, and from extending detentions solely to investigate immigration violations.

Whether the Fort Payne police officers unlawfully seized and detained the plaintiffs based solely on their race or ethnicity, lacking reasonable suspicion of any crime, and whether the city’s policies and practices resulted in constitutional violations under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The case prompted significant policy reforms within the Fort Payne Police Department and drew regional and national attention to the issue of racial profiling against Latino communities in Alabama. It reinforced legal scrutiny of local law enforcement’s role in federal immigration enforcement and served as a warning to municipalities that engaging in immigration-related stops without reasonable suspicion can lead to constitutional liability and costly settlements.