No More Deaths and partner organizations interviewed nearly 13,000 people to compile the Culture of Cruelty report, documenting abuse of migrants in Border Patrol short-term custody. One interview included a 54-year-old man who had lived in Los Angeles for 35 years. Border Patrol detained him in October 2010, as he tried to return home after visiting his ailing mother in Mexico. He suffered a back injury when the Border Patrol vehicle transporting him flipped over. After hospital treatment, he was deported and then died in Nogales, Sonora after his medication ran out. Says Danielle Alvarado, a No More Deaths volunteer and co-author of the report: “What we’ve found is clearly not the result of a few ‘bad apples’. We continue to hear the same stories from thousands of people, released from different Border Patrol stations, year after year. They are alarmingly consistent.”
According to the interviews, individuals suffering severe dehydration are routinely deprived of water; people with life-threatening medical conditions are denied treatment; children and adults are beaten during apprehensions and in custody; many are crammed into cells and subjected to extreme temperatures, deprived of sleep and subject to humiliation and other forms of psychological abuse. Alvarado suggests that many of the practices documented in the report constitute torture under international law.
Conditions in Border Patrol custody have not changed much since 2008, the volunteers say, when NMD published its first Border Patrol abuse report.
“The U.S. Border Patrol continues to abuse and mistreat people in its custody. By failing to address this known problem, the Border Patrol and DHS betray America’s tradition of professionalism and basic respect for humanity in law enforcement,” said ACLU-NM RCBR Director Vicki Gaubeca. “The culture of detention and deportation is inherently abusive and destroys hard-working families. It is clear that the Border Patrol cannot police itself and needs independent oversight to ensure that inhumane treatment of men, women and children in its custody does not continue.”
The ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights and No More Deaths urge an immediate end to abusive practices, as well as the creation of a transparent, independent and accountable system of oversight for the U.S. Border Patrol – including an overhaul of the complaint investigation process.
Community organizations in Tucson, Douglas, El Paso, Albuquerque, Seattle, Detroit and Boston are holding simultaneous press events promoting the findings in the report.
The new report is available online at www.cultureofcruelty.org.
CONTACT: Micah McCoy, (505) 266-5915 x1003 or mmccoy@aclu-nm.org
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