By Kristina Davis / The San Diego Union-Tribune
SAN DIEGO — A trove of public records has exposed what civil rights advocates say is evidence of widespread abuse and mistreatment of unauthorized immigrant children detained by federal authorities along the Southwest border.
Examples of allegations of abuse include excessive physical force during apprehension, threats of sexual assault, derogatory slurs and failure to provide basic necessities such as bedding, food, medical care and clean facilities, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and University of Chicago Law School.
The report is based on more than 30,000 pages of documents obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s two oversight agencies, outlining possibly hundreds of separate allegations of abuse or mistreatment of minors under 18 who either crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally or claimed asylum from 2009 to 2014, said Mitra Ebadolahi, an attorney for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.
Many of the complaints were made by teenagers who crossed without their parents — known as unaccompanied minors — as well as underage mothers who allege their babies were subjected to sour milk, lack of medical care and dirty, crowded and chilly holding rooms.
“Again and again, the government agents responsible for these children’s welfare have turned a blind eye to colleagues’ lawlessness and violence,” the report states.
CBP responded Wednesday with a sharp rebuke of the report’s conclusions.
“The false accusations made by the ACLU against the previous administration are unfounded and baseless. The ‘report’ equates allegations with fact, flatly ignores a number of improvements made by CBP as well as oversight conducted by outside, independent agencies, including the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties over the last decade,” the statement says.
“The OIG has already completed an investigation and found these claims unsubstantiated and did not observe misconduct or inappropriate conduct. CBP takes seriously all allegations of misconduct, but without new specifics is unable to check to commence reasonable steps to examine these assertions and address the accusations levied.”
The effort to obtain the public documents began in 2014, when a spike in unaccompanied children crossing the border from Mexico and Central America was followed by a spike in complaints of abuse at the hands of Border Patrol agents and CBP officers, the ACLU said.
A coalition of legal service providers and immigrants’ rights advocates filed an administrative complaint in June 2014 alleging various forms of abuse against 116 children, ages 5 to 17, while in custody. The OIG investigated 16 claims and found them to be unfounded, according to a report issued by the agency.
The oversight agency also made 57 unannounced visits to 41 CBP facilities and did not observe the kind of behavior alleged in the complaints, the report stated.
Site inspections showed many detention facilities were adequate and following policy, but inconsistencies and poor management were found in some. The most glaring was during a July 2014 visit to a Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol facility in Texas, where the oversight group found no trash bins in a holding room and “body fluids on the walls and floors, along with used sanitary napkins and used toilet paper containing feces on the floors, all which cause a strong offensive odor throughout the processing area and should be considered as a health hazard,” according to the agency’s report.
In October the government announced it would stop routine detention facility inspections, prompting the ACLU’s Border Litigation Project in San Diego and Arizona to file a federal records request for any and all documents related to allegations of abuse of unauthorized immigrant children at the border during that six-year period. When the request was not fulfilled, the ACLU followed up with a lawsuit to compel release of the records.
Most cases were filed on behalf of the children by service providers once a child had been released from temporary CBP custody and into the care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for longer placement. Allegations of mistreatment usually surfaced during intake interviews or psychological exams with the service providers.
The documents provided to the ACLU include original complaints as well as internal emails regarding the investigations and letters sent to the petitioners advising of the status of the investigations.
The report’s authors acknowledge there are limitations to deciphering the documents. Many of the tens of thousands of pages don’t include case numbers or officer names, making it difficult to accurately quantify the number of unique complaints, trace a particular case from start to finish, or identify repeat offenders.
But the similarity to the misconduct alleged — encompassing different states, years and victim profiles — suggests a troubling pattern, ACLU officials said.
“There’s a consistency to them that to us indicates there’s truth there,” Ebadolahi said. “To the government they will always remain allegations.”
Some of the allegations detailed in the documents:
• A boy in Texas reported that he was lying on his back behind a bush when a Border Patrol agent approached him and Tased his stomach. When the boy tried to stand the agent stood on his leg, pushed him, kneed him twice in stomach, kicked him in the leg and then pushed back into the thorn bush, injuring his neck.
• A girl reported her arm had been broken during her apprehension by Border Patrol and she was made to sleep on the cement floor without bedding.
• A teen gave birth to a premature baby, and her doctor recommended upon release from the hospital that she and her newborn not return to a holding room with others. But they were returned to a dirty holding room with many other people, some of whom were sick, she reported.
• A boy who said he was 16 told agents that he was unsure of his birth date because he could not read or write. He said the Border Patrol agents threatened to put him in with adult men where he’d be sexually assaulted. “We’re going to put that you are 23 years old to send you to jail so that the others can make you their lady,” an agent reportedly told him.
• A girl said she was left alone with a male officer in detention, asked to undress and was then searched by him, although he didn’t touch her privates. She said she was nude about 15 minutes in front of him and he laughed at her.
Many investigations appear to have closed with the government stating that there was no evidence to corroborate the allegation and that the claim was unfounded or no further action would be taken at this time.
The report notes that the investigations by the oversight agencies frequently rely on CBP’s own records and officer statements rather than conduct independent assessments.
CBP says it has a robust system in place to investigate compliants, including a number of ways for the public to issue complaints.
CBP has also over the past few years implemented stronger procedures to improve its interactions with minors, including publishing national standards on transporting, detaining and caring for children. The agency mandated a zero-tolerance stance on sexual abuse and has developed better sexual abuse prevention and response protocols.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
