Report Claims Abuse Against Migrant Families Detained In Arizona
A Tucson-based organization claims U.S. Customs and Border Protection committed human rights abuses against migrant families detained in Southern Arizona. The report released Wednesday is based on interviews conducted last summer during the surge of unaccompanied child migrants and families from Central America.
The data was based on interviews with more than 30 immigrant adults after their release from short term detention from late May to late July. The report said abuses cover dehydration, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation among many other factors.
Blake Gentry is the author of the report published by the Guatemala Acupuncture and Medical Aid Project. He described some of the due process violations.
“Half of the immigrants described they did not receive an explanation of the legal papers issued to them in a language they understood,” he said. Another statistic stated 26 percent of the adults interviewed spoke an indigenous language as their first or only language.
Customs and Border Protection said it will not comment directly on the report before reviewing it, but provided a statement:
“CBP is committed to ensuring that the agency is able to execute its challenging missions while preserving the human rights and dignity of those with whom we come in contact. The men and women of CBP strive to treat each of the more than 1 million people we come into contact with each day with the respect they deserve. All allegations of misconduct are taken seriously, and if warranted, referred for appropriate investigative and/or disciplinary action to be taken.”
Gentry said this report adds to a list of several published over a span of six years documenting alleged inhumane practices by CBP and Border Patrol that are based on the policies of their parent agency.
“The Department of Homeland Security was set up on the basis of anti-terrorism, but its mission every day for 99.99 percent of the people that they find is immigrants,” he said.
Gentry said agents are not given the humanitarian training needed to address this population.
A report released earlier this month by the Human Rights Watch claimed that Border Patrol agents were routinely denying migrants from Central America the chance to ask for asylum.
