ICE official admits errors in court filing for Jamaica native detained in Hauppauge

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official has admitted in a recent court filing that he submitted inaccurate information to a federal judge in Central Islip about a Jamaica native detained at his immigration appointment in Hauppauge while seeking permanent residency in the United States.

"I apologize for these errors," wrote John Diaz, an ICE Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer, in the Jan. 23 court filing. "My declaration fell short of the professional standard that I seek to uphold."

In a court filing last month. U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote that Diaz’s information about the incarceration of Erron Anthony Clarke in a cramped Suffolk holding cell after his Dec. 5 detainment was "hearsay," based entirely on ICE records and conversations with other officers.

Diaz’s account was "evasive and demonstrably false," wrote Brown, who was appointed to the bench in 2019 by President Donald Trump during his first term.

In one example the judge provides, Diaz said Clarke was booked out of the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow at 3:45 p.m. and then booked into a holding cell in a Central Islip federal courthouse eight minutes later at 3:53 p.m. The two facilities are 20 miles apart.

"It is physically impossible that ICE officers moved Clarke from one facility to another in eight minutes," Brown wrote.

Diaz also had said that Clarke was booked out of Central Islip on Dec. 10 at 8:30 p.m. and booked into Delaney Hall, an ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, at 9 p.m., according to Brown. The 60-mile journey ranges from 90 minutes to 3 1/2 hours, Brown wrote, making it "objectively impossible" to do in 30 minutes. In the recent filing, Diaz wrote that Clarke was booked out of Delaney Hall on Dec. 11, rather than Dec. 12, as he had originally said. 

According to court records, Diaz has worked in his supervisor role for 2 1/2 years, and as a deportation officer since 2009.

Brown demanded answers from ICE last month about the "putrid and cramped" holding cells at 100 Federal Plaza in Central Islip, which are intended for a single person. Clarke was jailed there overnight alongside eight other men around an open toilet.

Most immigrants detained in those cells, and in the East Meadow jail, do not have a criminal record. Joseph Nocella, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, recently announced that ICE would limit the number of detainees jailed in the same cell at the Central Islip holding facility to two people.

In the Jan. 23 court filing, Diaz wrote to Brown that he pulled information from ICE’s database without knowing the database was "nevertheless wrong." He has since directed Long Island ICE officials to improve their recordkeeping practices, he wrote.

Bryan Flanagan, who oversees ICE operations in Nassau and Suffolk counties and also serves as acting field reporter for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in the New York City region, also wrote a response to Brown’s concerns.

ICE installed lower wattage light bulbs in the Central Islip cells, according to Flanagan, where Brown wrote that blaring lights kept detainees from sleeping.

Flanagan created a "Habeas Response Team" to respond quickly to a legal filing called "habeas corpus" used by immigration attorneys to challenge an immigrant’s detention.

Flanagan also wrote that he is implementing mandatory quarterly training for Long Island ICE personnel on "best practices in maintaining data integrity and refreshers on recording keeping procedures."

Newsday's Janon Fisher contributed to this story.