Budget hotel company Motel 6 appears ready to settle a lawsuit claiming it unlawfully passed guests’ personal data to ICE officers.
The class-action lawsuit alleged hotel employees turned over guests’ personal data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which included names, birth dates and license plate numbers.
Guests were mostly of Latino origin the lawsuit said.
It resulted in the arrest of at least seven guests and the hotel brand had a corporate policy of handing over personal information, the suit alleged.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) sued Motel 6 and parent company G6 Hospitality after 20 guests were detained at Motel 6 hotels in the Phoenix area.
Motel 6 violated state and federal laws, MALDEF said.
"This is a note of settlement in principle," MALDEF President Thomas Saenz told the Phoenix New Times of the proposed settlement.
"We are still working on the details and plan to present to the court a public filing with the full details of the settlement in the next couple of weeks."
The settlement details have not been disclosed and still need court approval.
Washington’s attorney general Robert W. Ferguson also filed a lawsuit against Motel 6 after data from about 9,000 guests was handed over at hotels there.
