Motel 6 has reached a tentative agreement in a lawsuit that claims it discriminated against some of its Latino guests and violated their privacy, a civil rights group says.
The suit, filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says two Phoenix locations of the hotel chain gave details of at least seven guests’ whereabouts and handed other personal information over to federal immigration agents before the guests got arrested.
The suit alleges Motel 6 has a practice of giving guests’ check-in information to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a warrant or a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is going on.
Court documents describe one account at a Phoenix Motel 6. A woman and her four kids checked in to escape the heat. When she registered, she showed her Mexican consular ID. The worker photocopied it. Early the next morning, three ICE agents banged on her hotel room door. They interrogated her in front of her kids and threatened to separate her from her children. They later arrested her without a warrant. Of eight Latino guests who stayed at the Phoenix-area motels, seven were arrested. At least one was subsequently deported.
Since the suit was filed, Motel 6 has said it will stop sharing its guest lists with ICE. The state of Washington also sued Motel 6, claiming ICE officials were going to Motel 6 locations in the state and asking for guest lists without a warrant, affecting more than 9,150 guests.
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