You Checked Into a Motel 6. They Gave Your Name to ICE.
Maybe you were driving through Washington on a long haul. Maybe you flew into SeaTac, landed late, needed a clean room and a soft bed. Maybe you were a traveling nurse, a construction worker, a farm laborer, a family visiting relatives in SeaTac or Des Moines or Federal Way. You paid for the room. You gave your ID at the front desk. You expected that information to stay between you and the hotel.
It did not.
Motel 6 employees at properties across Washington state, from the SeaTac airport corridor through the Puget Sound region, took the guest lists they had collected and handed them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Not because a judge signed a warrant. Not because a subpoena compelled disclosure. The desk clerks, in the normal course of their jobs, pointed ICE agents at rooms where Latino-sounding names were checked in. ICE agents then circled those names on the printed list and ran them through federal databases. People were approached in parking lots. People were detained. People were deported. Families were torn apart. The man wrapping Christmas presents for his children at a Motel 6 near SeaTac was detained in the parking lot and deported days later, leaving his wife to raise their children alone.
If this happened to you, or to someone in your family, the law gave you a path forward. On April 5, 2019, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that Motel 6 would pay $12 million to settle the state’s lawsuit, with more than $10 million earmarked for the affected guests. The case was the first of its kind. It is not the last. And if you are one of the 80,000 Washington guests whose information was shared between 2015 and 2017, you may still have rights, and you may still be able to recover.
This page is the full map of what happened, what the law says, who owes you what, and how we build the case.
What the Investigation Actually Found
The Washington Attorney General’s office filed suit against Motel 6 in 2017, and the facts that came out in the litigation are stark. The AG’s office alleged that employees at Motel 6 locations in the Puget Sound region, including the property near SeaTac, provided guest information to ICE agents, often on a daily basis, between 2015 and 2017. This was not a single rogue employee. It was a pattern.
The practice was simple and ugly: ICE agents would arrive at a Motel 6 property and ask for the guest list. The desk staff would print the list and hand it over. ICE agents would circle the names that sounded Latino and run those names through federal immigration databases. They would then show up at the rooms of the people whose names they had circled and take them into custody. Some of those people were deported. Some were detained for hours or days. All of them had their privacy violated.
The AG’s complaint alleged violations of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, the state’s primary consumer-protection statute, because Motel 6 represented to its guests that their information would be kept confidential as a matter of standard hotel practice, and because the company had an explicit privacy policy that it failed to follow. Motel 6’s own internal documents, produced during discovery, confirmed that the practice was well-known to management at the local level, even as the company publicly denied any systematic disclosure to ICE.
A separate but related case was filed in Arizona by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) on behalf of eight named Latino plaintiffs who had been detained after Motel 6 disclosures in Phoenix, including one who was deported. The Arizona case was settled first, in November 2018, with Motel 6 agreeing to a separate resolution that included injunctive relief, the kind of court-ordered, ongoing compliance requirements designed to stop the practice from recurring.
The Washington settlement, $12 million, was announced on April 5, 2019. Of that, more than $10 million was allocated to the approximately 80,000 affected Washington guests. The settlement also required Motel 6 to enter a legally binding commitment never to share guest information with ICE without a warrant, at any of its locations nationwide.
The Washington State Laws That Protect You
Washington is one of the most privacy-protective states in the country. The state constitution recognizes a right to privacy that courts have held protects guest registries, and Washington law stacks multiple remedies on top of that constitutional foundation.
The Washington Consumer Protection Act (RCW 19.86) is the load-bearing statute for these cases. It prohibits unfair or deceptive acts in trade or commerce. A hotel that tells guests their information will be kept confidential, and then provides that information to federal agents for the purpose of targeting individuals for immigration enforcement, is engaged in a deceptive act that affects the public interest. The CPA allows you to recover your actual damages, your costs of suit, and your reasonable attorneys’ fees, plus statutory treble damages of up to $25,000 for each violation. The statute of limitations on a CPA claim is four years from the date of the violation, or four years from when you discovered or reasonably should have discovered the violation, whichever runs later.
Washington’s Privacy Act (RCW 9.73) independently prohibits the interception or recording of private communications, and Washington’s constitutional right to privacy has been interpreted to reach a wide range of conduct, including the disclosure of personal information to government agents. While the precise theory of invasion of privacy under Washington law varies, the underlying right is real and enforceable.
The Immigration and Nationality Act itself, as it stood during the 2015-2017 period, did not require hotels to voluntarily disclose guest information to ICE. The constitutional Fourth Amendment requires a judicial warrant, or at minimum a properly-issued subpoena, before the government can compel a private business to turn over its customer records. The practice of handing guest lists over to ICE agents upon request, with no warrant, no subpoena, and no judicial oversight, was a violation of the guests’ constitutional rights as well as state consumer-protection law.
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
— 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (Communications Decency Act)
That federal statute, the Communications Decency Act, protects websites from liability for what their users post. It does not protect a hotel from liability for handing over its own guest records to federal agents. The Motel 6 case is not a Section 230 case. It is a hotel, not a website. Section 230 has no application here, and the defendants could not hide behind it.
“The legislature finds that the practice of unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade or commerce is a matter of state concern. The legislature intends to provide private causes of action for persons injured as a result of such practices and to provide for an additional state enforcement mechanism to prevent such practices.”
— RCW 19.86.010 (Washington Consumer Protection Act, statement of purpose)
This is the statute the Washington Attorney General used to extract the $12 million settlement. This is the statute you can use directly, as a private plaintiff, to recover your damages. The fact that the state has already settled its own case does not bar you from bringing your own individual claim. The state recovered for the public interest. You recover for your individual harm.
Who You Can Sue: The Defendant Stack
Motel 6 is not a single company. It is a corporate structure designed, in part, to put legal distance between a guest and the entity that controls the brand. Understanding the structure is essential to understanding who owes you what.
G6 Hospitality LLC is the operating entity that owned and operated the Motel 6 brand during the 2015-2017 disclosure period. G6 was, at that time, a subsidiary of Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. Blackstone sold G6 Hospitality to Oravel Stays, the parent of the Indian hotel company OYO, in a $525 million deal that closed on December 17, 2024. The successor entity, Oravel Stays, is the current owner of the Motel 6 brand. Under standard successor-liability principles, the buyer assumes liability for pre-closing conduct, but the chain of ownership affects where the recovery dollars actually sit, and the insurance tower that was in place at the time of the disclosure is the tower that pays your claim.
The individual Motel 6 franchisees and property managers who actually handed over the guest lists are also defendants. In the Motel 6 model, many properties are franchised, owned by separate LLCs and operated by separate management entities. The individual property owners, the franchisees, and the on-site managers who knew about and participated in the disclosure practice all have potential exposure. The franchisee is not a shield that protects the brand; the franchisee is a co-defendant who shares the liability.
The on-site employees, the desk clerks and managers who actually printed the lists and handed them to ICE agents, are individuals whose conduct created the harm. As a practical matter, individual employees are often judgment-proof, but their conduct is admissible as evidence against the corporate defendants. The pattern of disclosure, established by employee testimony, internal emails, and ICE logbooks, is the spine of the case.
The key point is this: the brand cannot point at the franchisee and walk away. The franchisee cannot point at the employee and walk away. The employee cannot point at ICE and walk away. The liability stack is layered, and we pursue the full stack to find the recovery that actually exists.
What Your Case Is Worth
The $12 million settlement fund, with $10 million going to affected guests, gives a frame, but it is a frame for a class, not for you as an individual. Your individual case value depends on the specific harm you suffered.
If you were a guest at a Motel 6 in Washington between 2015 and 2017, and your information was among the 80,000 disclosed, you have a claim. The size of that claim depends on what happened after the disclosure.
Low end, approximately $50,000 and below: Guests whose information was disclosed but who were never contacted by ICE, who suffered no detention, no deportation, no family separation, and no quantifiable economic loss, fall into this category. These cases still have value. The disclosure itself was a violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. The emotional distress of knowing that your name was on a list given to a federal immigration enforcement agency, even if you were never contacted, is real. The privacy interest you lost has a legal value. But the dollars in this category are lower.
High end, approximately $2.5 million and above: Guests who were detained by ICE after their information was disclosed, who were held for hours or days, who were separated from their families, who were deported, who lost wages or employment as a result, who suffered lasting psychological harm from the detention and the threat of removal, fall into this category. The man detained in the Motel 6 parking lot near SeaTac and deported days later, leaving his wife to raise their children alone, is in this category. The economic damages, lost wages, lost earning capacity, and the non-economic damages, emotional distress, family separation, loss of parental consortium, are substantial. A jury, properly presented with the facts, can return a verdict in this range.
The case value range of $50,000 to $2,500,000 reflects the full spread of individual outcomes. Most cases land somewhere in the middle, where there was some contact with ICE, some disruption to the person’s life, but not full deportation. The exact value of your case requires a free consultation with our team. We will review the specific facts and give you a candid assessment.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The defense will try to minimize your damages. They will say, “You were never actually deported.” Or, “You were not injured by the disclosure itself.” Or, “The disclosure was routine.” These are the plays we expect, and they are the plays we know how to defeat. More on that below.
The Evidence Race: What Exists, Who Holds It, How Fast It Disappears
The evidence in a Motel 6 / ICE case is perishable, and the defendants know it. The single most important thing you can do after reading this page is to call us so we can send the preservation letters. Here is what the evidence looks like and how fast it dies.
The guest registry and property management system records are the core documents. Every Motel 6 property in Washington ran a property management system that logged every guest check-in: name, address, license plate, payment method, room number, length of stay. These records existed at the time of the disclosure. They were the lists that were printed and handed to ICE. Whether they still exist today, in 2026, depends on the property’s individual retention policy and on the litigation hold that was issued during the Washington AG case. Our job is to demand, in writing, that every property preserve its PMS records going back to 2015, and that G6 Hospitality, Oravel Stays, and any successor entity produce them in discovery.
The closed-circuit television footage from each Motel 6 lobby and parking lot captured the moments when ICE agents arrived, when guest lists were printed, and when guests were taken into custody in the parking lot. CCTV footage is routinely overwritten on a rolling 30-day loop at most properties. The 2015-2017 footage is almost certainly gone. But the fact that the footage is gone is itself evidence. A defendant that failed to preserve CCTV footage after being put on notice of litigation can be sanctioned. A jury can be instructed to assume the missing footage would have been unfavorable to the defendant.
The key-card and electronic door lock records show who entered which room and when. In a Motel 6 / ICE case, these records are crucial: they can show ICE agents entering specific rooms at specific times, corroborating the disclosure and the detention. Key-card data retention is property-specific and short. Demand it now.
The housekeeping and maintenance logs can corroborate the pattern of disclosure. If a particular room was flagged by housekeeping as refusing service, or as showing signs of unusual activity, that record helps establish the broader pattern of how the property was used.
The ICE agent logs and 287(g) records, if they exist, are federal records that memorialize each ICE contact with a Motel 6 property. We can FOIA these from ICE, and we can subpoena them in litigation. They are the federal government’s own record of the practice.
The internal Motel 6 emails, memos, and training materials are the smoking gun. Internal corporate communications during the 2015-2017 period, including any training materials that instructed front-desk staff on how to respond to ICE requests, any internal discussions about the practice, and any complaints from guests or advocacy groups, are the proof of corporate knowledge. These documents existed. Whether they still exist depends entirely on the litigation hold that was put in place during the Washington AG case. We subpoena them in discovery and we seek sanctions if they have been destroyed.
The call-for-service records from the local police department in the city where the Motel 6 is located, often the city of SeaTac, Des Moines, Federal Way, Tukwila, or other King County jurisdictions for Washington cases, can corroborate ICE activity at the property. These are public records. We pull them.
The clock on all of this evidence has been running for years. The Washington AG case is over, but the preservation obligation continues for any individual claim. We send the letter the day you call. The defendants cannot then destroy evidence without consequence.
The Defense Playbook: Three Plays to Expect and How to Beat Them
The defense team for Motel 6, G6 Hospitality, and any successor entity will run a familiar playbook. Here are the three plays we see most often, and the counter to each.
Play One: “This was industry practice. Every hotel cooperates with law enforcement.”
This is the most common defense, and it is the most misleading. The defense will point to general industry cooperation with law enforcement as if that justifies the Motel 6 practice. The counter is precise. Cooperation with law enforcement, when properly supported by a warrant, a subpoena, or other judicial process, is one thing. Voluntarily handing over guest lists to ICE agents who circle names based on ethnicity, with no warrant, no subpoena, and no judicial oversight, is something else entirely. The Fourth Amendment exists precisely to prevent this. Washington law recognizes a constitutional right to privacy that reaches guest registries. The defense cannot make a constitutional violation disappear by pointing to industry custom.
Play Two: “The federal government asked for the information. We were cooperating with federal law enforcement.”
This play tries to shift responsibility to ICE. The counter is that the legal duty to protect guest privacy runs to the guest, not to the federal agency. Motel 6 had a choice. It could have required a warrant before disclosing guest information. It could have refused to disclose without judicial process. Instead, it voluntarily printed guest lists and handed them over. The fact that ICE asked does not relieve Motel 6 of its obligation to its guests under Washington consumer-protection law and the state constitutional right to privacy.
Play Three: “The guest was not actually injured. We shared information; that is not a damages event.”
This is the no-injury play. The counter is that the disclosure itself is the injury. Washington law recognizes invasion of privacy as a compensable harm. The CPA recognizes a per-violation statutory damage of up to $25,000, independent of any actual economic loss. And the guests who were detained, separated from their families, or deported suffered quantifiable economic and non-economic damages that run into the hundreds of thousands and, in the most serious cases, into the millions. The defense will try to minimize your harm. We will not let them.
How We Build the Case
We build the case the way we build every case at Attorney911: with a team, with a plan, and with the resources to see it through.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court, fighting for injured people against corporate defendants who would rather pay lawyers than pay claims. Before he was a lawyer he was a journalist, which means he knows how to find a story in a stack of documents and tell it to a jury. Ralph is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a Million Dollar Member of the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association. He will run your case personally.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before joining our team, which means he knows exactly how the other side values claims, sets reserves, and decides when to settle and when to fight. He is fluent in Spanish, and he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. For a case that has devastated a Spanish-speaking community, that matters. You can find more about Lupe at attorney911.com/attorneys/lupe-pena/.
Our fee is contingency: 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. We don’t get paid unless we win. The free consultation is free. There is no risk to you in calling us, and there is significant risk in not calling us, because the evidence clock is running and the statutes of limitation have deadlines.
If your case is in Washington, we work with experienced Washington co-counsel to make sure you are represented by lawyers admitted in the state where your case lives. We bring the investigation, the strategy, and the trial-readiness. Local counsel brings the bar admission and the local-court fluency. You get a team.
What to Do Right Now
If you or a family member stayed at a Motel 6 in Washington state between 2015 and 2017, and you were contacted, detained, or deported by ICE, or if you believe your information was shared with ICE even if you were not contacted, here is what to do.
Do not discuss the case with anyone from the hotel, the hotel’s parent company, or any insurance adjuster or attorney who contacts you about it. Anything you say can be used against you. Refer them to us.
Gather what you can. The receipt from the hotel, if you have it. Any text messages or emails with family from around the time of the incident. The names of any family members who were present or who witnessed what happened. The dates you stayed, the city, and the specific Motel 6 location if you remember it. Medical records if you suffered physical or psychological harm. Any communication from ICE, including a Notice to Appear, a Notice of Detention, a deportation order, or any other immigration document.
Then call us. The free consultation costs you nothing. The statute of limitations is running, and on the Washington Consumer Protection Act, it is four years from the violation, or four years from when you discovered or should have discovered it. For some affected guests, the clock may still be open. For others, it may have closed. We need to talk to you to find out where you stand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue Motel 6 even if I was never actually contacted or detained by ICE?
Yes. The disclosure of your information was itself a violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, regardless of what ICE did or did not do afterward. The privacy interest you lost has legal value. The CPA also provides up to $25,000 in statutory damages per violation, independent of any actual economic loss. That said, cases where there was actual detention, deportation, or family separation are worth significantly more. We need to review the specific facts of your case to advise you.
I was an undocumented guest. Can I still sue?
Yes. Washington’s Consumer Protection Act does not require the plaintiff to be a documented immigrant. The statute protects “any person who is injured in his or her business or property” by an unfair or deceptive act. The violation of your privacy happened regardless of your immigration status. The act of handing your information to ICE was illegal, and you were the victim of that illegal act. Your immigration status does not eliminate your right to sue, and under standard Washington consumer-protection law, your status is not a bar to recovery. We will protect your privacy throughout the case.
How long do I have to file a case?
The Washington Consumer Protection Act has a four-year statute of limitations, running from the date of the violation or from when you discovered or reasonably should have discovered the violation. The Washington personal-injury statute of limitations is three years. Some claims arising from this conduct may also have been brought under other theories, with their own deadlines. The time to act is now, and the exact deadline for your case requires a free consultation with our team.
Who is actually responsible? Motel 6 the brand, or the individual property where I stayed?
Both. The brand, currently owned by Oravel Stays through G6 Hospitality, and previously owned by Blackstone, is responsible for the brand policies and the training (or lack of training) that allowed the practice. The individual franchisee or property owner is responsible for the conduct of its employees at the specific property. In a typical case, we name both, along with any individual employees whose conduct is provable. The corporate shell game does not protect the brand from liability for its own policies, and it does not protect the franchisee from liability for its own employees’ conduct.
What evidence do I need to prove my case?
The strongest evidence is the hotel’s own records: the guest registry showing your stay, the CCTV footage (if any survives), the key-card records, the housekeeping logs, and the internal communications showing that the practice was known to management. We also use ICE records obtained through FOIA and litigation, local police records, and testimony from other affected guests. Your own testimony, and the testimony of family members who witnessed what happened, is critical. The fact that the Washington AG obtained a $12 million settlement is itself strong evidence that the practice was real, widespread, and harmful.
Will I be reported to ICE if I come forward?
No. Our ethical duty as your lawyers is to protect your information. We do not report clients to immigration authorities. The Washington Attorney General’s case established that Motel 6’s voluntary disclosure practice was illegal, and the settlement required Motel 6 to stop the practice. Coming forward to us to assert your own legal rights is not a basis for further enforcement action, and we have no obligation to report you to anyone. Your privacy and safety are our priority.
How much is my case worth?
It depends on the specific harm you suffered. Cases where there was no contact with ICE, no detention, and no family separation typically fall in the $50,000 range or below. Cases with significant contact, detention, family separation, or deportation can reach $2,500,000 or more, depending on the duration of detention, the loss of wages, the psychological harm, and the strength of the documentary record. The full range of case values for this type of claim is approximately $50,000 to $2,500,000. We will give you a candid assessment at the free consultation.
What is the difference between the Washington AG case and my individual case?
The Washington AG’s case was brought on behalf of the state, under the CPA, to enforce the public interest, to stop the illegal practice, and to obtain a settlement fund. Your individual case is brought on your own behalf, to recover the specific damages you suffered. The two are complementary, not exclusive. The AG’s settlement does not preclude you from filing your own claim, and in many cases the AG’s settlement actually makes your individual case stronger, because it established the facts, the legal theories, and the pattern of misconduct.
I was contacted by ICE at a Motel 6 in Arizona, not Washington. Can you still help?
Yes. The Arizona case was settled separately with MALDEF, and the legal theories, including the Fourth Amendment violation and state consumer-protection claims, are similar. We can review an Arizona case and advise you on the applicable law. The $12 million Washington settlement does not preclude an Arizona claim, and the injunctive relief Motel 6 was required to put in place, including the commitment not to share guest information without a warrant at any of its locations nationwide, applies to Arizona as well.
How do I get started?
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The free consultation is free. We will review the facts of your case, advise you on the applicable law and the statute of limitations, and explain your options. There is no obligation. We don’t get paid unless we win.
Free Consultation. No Fee Unless We Win.
The privacy violation happened to you, not because of anything you did wrong, but because a corporation decided your information was worth less than its convenience. The law gives you a path forward. We are here to walk it with you.
Contact Attorney911 today for a free, confidential consultation. We will review the facts of your case, explain your rights under Washington law, and tell you honestly whether we can help. There is no fee unless we recover for you. You pay nothing out of pocket, and you owe us nothing if we do not win.
Our practice areas include consumer protection, civil rights, and privacy-related claims. Meet Ralph Manginello and meet Lupe Peña to learn more about who will be handling your case. We have additional resources on what to do if your insurance claim is denied and how contingency fees work that may help you understand the financial side of hiring a lawyer.
If you or a family member is undocumented and worried about coming forward, please know that we have represented undocumented clients before, we have worked with Spanish-speaking communities across the country, and we will protect your privacy. Hablamos Español. Your consultation will be conducted in the language you are most comfortable with, and we will not report you to any government agency. The legal system gave you rights when your privacy was violated. Using those rights is not a crime.
The evidence clock is running. The statute of limitations is real. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. We don’t get paid unless we win. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.