The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a federal civil rights lawsuit last week against Jim Thorpe Borough and two of its police officers over a traffic stop that occurred in February 2018.

In their complaint, ACLU attorneys allege their client, Arturo Jonas Joaquin Marte of Philadelphia, was the passenger in a vehicle with two other Latino men when they were stopped by Jim Thorpe police officer Kyle Oliver and another unknown officer. The men were traveling in a work van to install a deck at a nearby home, the complaint states.

Oliver and the other officer stopped the vehicle due to a clear plastic cover on its license plate and did not issue a citation. The officers placed the three men in handcuffs and drove them to the police station, where ACLU attorneys said they were held for three hours until Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents arrived.

“The reality in this case is that Jim Thorpe police initiated this traffic stop because the people in the vehicle were Latino,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, in a press release issued Thursday. “Despite their flimsy excuse for the stop, they didn’t even bother to issue a traffic citation but, instead, unlawfully held Marte for nearly four hours. The police in this borough are not immigration agents and, thus, do not have authority to enforce federal civil immigration law.”

Contacted for comment Thursday, Jim Thorpe Borough Solicitor Jim Nanovic said he was aware of the lawsuit, but had yet to see the complaint.

Marte was eventually transferred to Lehigh County Prison and then to York County Prison, before he was set free on a bond set by an immigration judge.

The ACLU said it also named the borough as a defendant in the lawsuit for, “failing to properly train and discipline its officers on their limitations in enforcing federal civil immigration law.”

Marte, through the ACLU, is seeking actual and compensatory damages, punitive damages against Oliver and the other officer, attorneys fees and any other reasonable costs.