The Phoenix New Times created a firestorm for a popular motel chain this week.
Reporters Antonia Noori Farzan and Joseph Flaherty found a pattern of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents at two Motel 6’s in predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix. And that raised the question: are Motel 6 employees there systematically calling ICE on undocumented guests?
Well, after their story was published, it went viral and now Motel 6 has admitted to the practice — and discontinued it.
I sat down with Flaherty to talk more about the story, and how they found out it was happening to begin with.
And as we mentioned earlier, Motel 6 has since admitted that certain properties in Phoenix were voluntarily providing daily guest lists to ICE without the knowledge of senior management.
They apologized for this incident and said they’ll be issuing a directive to all of their properties, making it clear that they are prohibited from doing this.
