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A photo of 2017 shows a Motel 6 in Phoenix. Local reporters found that several Motel 6 establishments provided lists of names of guests to immigration officers. This has resulted in lawsuits accusing the company of discrimination against Latinos and breaches of privacy.
Anita Snow / AP
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Anita Snow / AP
A photo of 2017 shows a Motel 6 in Phoenix. Local reporters found that several Motel 6 establishments provided lists of names of guests to immigration officers. This has resulted in lawsuits accusing the company of discrimination against Latinos and breaches of privacy.
Anita Snow / AP
The Motel 6 chain has agreed to pay $ 7.6 million to settle a class action lawsuit after several Motel 6 locations handed out guest lists to police and customs officials.
The sharing of these lists has led to the arrest and deportation of an as yet unknown number of hotel guests.
The settlement agreement was tentatively concluded in July, but the details were not made public until this week. The agreement, which still has to be approved by a federal judge, provides for Motel 6 to pay money directly to the affected customers and also imposes tighter controls on confidential information.
Motel 6 acknowledged that the lists of guests had been handed over to the authorities, but denied that senior management was aware of the practice. As early as last fall, the company announced that it had asked all sites to stop sharing guest lists with ICE.
The news of the practice first appeared last September when the Phoenix New Times investigated two Phoenix Motel 6 establishments owned by a company. An anonymous employee of the hotel told the alternative weekly: "We send a report every morning to ICE – all the names of all those who enter … we carry out the audit and we press a button which transmits it to ICE.
"With all these cases that we examined, the person had no outstanding warrant," said Antonia Farzan, one of the victims. New times reporters, said NPR. "There were no complaints, there was no indication that they were violating other laws during their stay at the motel.
"In other words, they did not bother anyone, they paid to rent a room, so it's hard to see what a problem it was for the motel to have them as a guest."
A few months later, officials from the state of Washington announced that six Motel 6 establishments in the Puget Sound area had admitted the same practice of sharing guest lists, in violation of the laws on protection consumers.
"The hotel gave the guest list of all guests staying at the hotel. Thousands of individuals have therefore been appointed by ICE," said Attorney General of the 39, Washington State, Bob Ferguson, to NPR in January.
"And according to our interviews with Motel 6 employees, ICE agents would circle names that sounded latino and analyze them in a database, then detain people based on these random checks."
Washington State has taken legal action against Motel 6, which is still pending.
The new settlement agreement would resolve a separate class action filed in Phoenix in January on behalf of the affected guests.
The lawsuit alleges that disclosure of clients 'personal information to immigration authorities was a "corporate policy" that violated clients' privacy rights (as well as Motel 6's own privacy policy). privacy) and discriminated on the basis of race by targeting Latinos.
The settlement agreement does not include any admissions of wrongdoing and Motel 6 continues to deny any illegal policy.
The interim settlement agreement includes payments to all guests who have stayed in Motel 6 hotels and shared their information with immigration authorities.
Anyone whose information is shared without apparent repercussions would receive $ 50; anyone interviewed by the authorities would have received $ 1,000; and anyone who is the subject of an eviction proceeding will receive "at least $ 7,500".
The total amount of payments would be capped at $ 1 million, $ 1 million and $ 5.6 million respectively.
The lawsuit was filed by MALDEF, the Mexican-American Fund for Legal Defense and Education.
MALDEF and Motel 6 issued a joint statement in which he stated:
"Motel 6 fully recognizes the seriousness of the situation and accepts the responsibility of compensating the injured and taking the necessary steps to protect the privacy of our guests.
"As part of this agreement, Motel 6 has put in place additional controls to protect confidential information and strengthen corporate oversight in cases where law enforcement agencies request information, including when lawful requests are made. "
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, said that it was important to find a way "for victims of victims in the country to seek redress".
But, he says, it's "more important [that] in the future Motel 6 will not indulge in this driving. "
Motel 6 stated that the sharing of guest lists had been "implemented at the local level" without the knowledge of management.
The Attorney General of Washington State, Ferguson, was skeptical of this assertion of local practice when he spoke with NPR in January.
"I asked my team to investigate and we now know what … Motel 6 said in September [2017] It was not true, "he said. It's much more widespread than they let the public believe. "
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