Court records revealed that a number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests have been made from two Motel 6 locations in predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Arizona, lending credence to the theory that employees were tipping off officials on an alleged undocumented immigrant's location, according to a Phoenix New Times report on Wednesday.
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Motel 6 locations suspected of tipping off ICE agents of undocumented immigrants in Arizona
ICE has made at least 20 arrests at two Motel 6 franchises in Phoenix since February.
A conservative estimate of 20 arrests from the two corporate-owned locations were said to have been made between February and August, the New Times reported.
In one case, ICE officers were said to be "following a lead" and that they "received information" on the specific room number of a suspect who hours earlier had shown the front-desk clerk a Mexican voter ID card.
"We send a report every morning to ICE — all the names of everybody that comes in," a front-desk clerk said. "Every morning at about 5 o'clock, we do the audit and we push a button and it sends it to ICE."
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If the Motel 6 locations were sharing guest information, it would not necessarily be violating the rule of law. In a 2015 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that demanding guest records from hotel operators would be considered an unreasonable search. However, it left open the possibility that the hotel could voluntarily disclose that information to law enforcement officials.
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