USA

Crossing the line: Human rights abuses on the US-Mexico border

Overview Police Brutality Human Rights Violations on the US-Mexico Border Abuse of Prisoners Women in Detention Arbitary detention of asylum-seekers Super-maximum security Death Penalty Racism and the death penalty International Context FAQ

In the community known as “Segundo Barrio” in El Paso, Texas, some parents won’t let their children leave home in the morning without their birth certificates. Located only a few kilometers from the US-Mexico border, and made up almost exclusively of people of Latin American descent, Segundo Barrio has been subjected to intensive and often abusive policing by the Border Patrol, a law enforcement agency of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

In 1992, students and staff at a local high school brought a class action suit against the El Paso Border Patrol alleging a pattern of serious human rights abuses. Cases adopted by the court as findings of fact included that of a 15-year-old girl, Nieden Susie Diaz, who was assaulted by a Border Patrol agent on her way home from school. According to the court, the agent “for no apparent reason knocked Nieden down to the ground and kicked her about twenty times.”

In granting a restraining order against the El Paso Border Patrol, the court stated that the procedures presently in place for reporting and investigating human rights abuses by the INS were “ineffective… and often the victim of abuse is discouraged from filing a complaint by the governmental offices, personnel and complaint structure.”

Unfortunately, these problems are not isolated to a single community. Today, the INS employs more armed officers with the power of arrest than any other US federal agency. Most are concentrated along the US-Mexico border where they are charged with intercepting and deporting illegal immigrants. For the last ten years, the Border Patrol has also formally collaborated with the US Army in the “War on Drugs.”

While Amnesty International doesn‘t take issue with the right of any country to police its international borders, AI insists this should be done in compliance with international human rights laws and standards. The INS, however, has had a long and troubled history in the US-Mexico border region, with many allegations of officer misconduct including unlawful lethal shootings, physical assaults and ill-treatment of detainees in custody.

The US-Mexico border is roughly 3,300 km long, running from San Diego, California in the west, to Brownsville, Texas in the east. People on either side of the line have much in common, including family ties. In fact, the border runs through the lands of four federally-recognized Native American nations – the Tohono O’odham, the Yaqui, the Cocopah and the Kickapoo.

For much of the history of the US, people could move easily — and legally — back and forth across the border. This began to change after World War I as measures were introduced to restrict immigration and expel people of Mexican descent.

Although founded in 1924, the Border Patrol was not given the power of arrest until 1986. These powers were expanded in 1990 as part of the “War on Drugs.” Over the course of 1990s, the Border Patrol more than doubled in size and now employs 9000 officers. Its parent agency has the capacity to detain more than 15,000 people at any one time and wants to increase this number to 24,000.

Increased policing, however, does nothing to address the root causes of immigration. Pressed by economic and social problems, many thousands of Mexicans in particular, but also people from other Latin American countries, go in search of better livelihoods north of the border every year. New economic hardships in Central American caused by Hurricane Mitch are likely to increase the number of people attempting to cross the US- Mexico border. Despite its increased power and resources, the INS appears ill-equipped to deal with this reality in accordance with international standards and principles.

A recent AI report shows how steps taken over the course of the last decade to seal the border against illegal immigration, coupled with the “War on Drugs”, have increased the potential for human rights violations against legitimate immigrants and asylum seekers, illegal border crossers, and US citizens wrongly suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Allegations highlighted in the report include police brutality; denial of food, water, blankets and medical attention for long hours; sexual abuse; and abusive or racist conduct sometimes resulting in the wrongful deportation of US citizens to Mexico. Unaccompanied juveniles in INS detention often find it difficult to obtain adequate legal advice and representation. Human rights monitors have documented instances in which Native Americans have been harassed, despite border-crossing rights guaranteed by treaty.

In 1997 the INS took a major step forward in acknowledging the seriousness of the problem. A citizen review process, the Citizens Advisory Panel (CAP), had emphasized the urgent need to reform the INS complaint process and to improve employee training for Border Patrol agents. In response, the INS issued an Action Plan promising to implement most of the CAP recommendations. AI believes that, if fully implemented, these recommendations would go a long way toward remedying many of the human rights abuses on the US-Mexico border. Unfortunately, AI’s fact finding visits to the border region suggest that implementation of this Action Plan is slow, perhaps even stalled. Overall, INS reform has not kept pace with the continued rapid growth of the Border Patrol, leaving millions in the US-Mexico border region vulnerable to abuse.

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Cause for Concern

Human rights abuses on the US-Mexico border are of international concern, not just because some of the victims are foreign citizens, but also because these abuses violate international standards and principles of human rights protection to which all states should be held accountable.

Principle 24 of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention states, “A proper medical examination shall be offered to a detained or imprisoned person as promptly as possible… and thereafter medical care and treatment shall be provided whenever necessary.” According to Border Patrol policies, injured detainees are supposed to be given medical assistance and transported to the closest hospital. However, in several cases collected by AI, injured detainees not only had their medical needs ignored, but were expeditiously returned to Mexico.

According to a sworn affidavit given by a nurse at Douglas Hospital, Arizona, a 26-year-old Mexican woman was brought into the hospital with her little boy aged four and her one-year-old daughter, on April 5, 1997. The woman said she had fallen into a hole while being chased by the Border Patrol. She told the nurse that she had been left in the desert by the Border Patrol, who called the Douglas fire department to transport her and her two children to the hospital.

The woman could not walk and X-rays showed she had a broken leg. But before she could receive any treatment, four Border Patrol agents removed the woman from the hospital. According to the nurse, the agents had a taxi driver take the woman back over the border and “essentially dumped her there with the two children.”

Other recent allegations of human rights violations include:

David, a juvenile from El Salvador, was arrested in New Mexico and — in violation of INS policy, US law and international standards — handed over to the Mexican authorities, who held him for three days, allegedly without food and water, and beat him. Article 37(d) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states, “Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance…”

Luz López and Norma Contreras, both aged 23 and from Guatemala, allege that they were sexually assaulted by a Border Patrol agent. The agent allegedly handcuffed them in his vehicle and sexually assaulted both women for several hours — on one occasion in full view of a second agent — before giving the women one dollar each and releasing them into the USA. Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

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