Utica, N.Y. — A federal judge has ruled that Border Patrol agents illegally stopped an immigrant after hearing a group of people he was with speak Spanish in a Central New York Walmart store.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Brindisi wrote in his decision Thursday that the agents violated Osman Escalante-Lopez’s rights because they did not have a legal basis to stop him and several other men he was with in Madison County in May.
The agents were acting on general allegations that people without legal status were working on farms somewhere in the 22-square-mile city of Oneida, Brindisi wrote…