SAN DIEGO – The American Civil Liberties Union today demanded a federal investigation into allegations of rampant abuse of individuals, including U.S. citizens and legal residents, by Customs and Border Protection agents at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a complaint filed today with the Department of Homeland Security, the ACLU and its border affiliates in San Diego, Calif., Arizona, New Mexico and Texas document 11 instances in which Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents disregard the civil and human rights of individuals crossing the border in apparent violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law and agency guidelines. Most of the individuals complaining of abuse are U.S. citizens or are lawfully residing or visiting the U.S.
“There is simply no justification for the kind of needless abuse CBP officers inflict on many travelers,” said Sean Riordan, staff attorney for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “Far too many travelers are told by CBP officers that they have no rights. But the government must comply with basic and constitutional rights even when it is policing the border. It is unacceptable that CBP has not established sufficient oversight and accountability mechanisms to prevent officers from physically assaulting, detaining and psychologically abusing travelers.”

The ACLU’s complaint includes evidence of excessive force; unwarranted, invasive and humiliating personal searches; unjustified and repeated detentions based on misidentification; and use of coercion to force individuals to surrender their legal rights, citizenship documents and property.

In one example, Hernan Cuevas, a Chilean businessman who was attempting to enter the U.S. with a valid visa, was strip-searched and chained to a metal bench for three hours without explanation. One CBP officer told him, “This is my country now and when you are here, you listen to me. I don’t like your kind that takes our jobs and uses our system…”
“I could not believe I was in the U.S. I was completely perplexed,” said Cuevas. “The incident was so bizarre that it was a perfect fit for a ‘banana republic,’ a corrupt place without democracy.”

Many of the testimonies collected by the ACLU include CBP agents physically attacking women and men, some of whom were handcuffed at the time. Testimonies include unnecessary and invasive searches, which left some affected individuals feeling as though they had been sexually assaulted.

The conduct of CBP officers at or near the points of entry along the U.S. border has come under scrutiny in recent years after two high-profile deaths. In May 2010, Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas, a 42-year-old construction worker and father of five, died after being beaten and then tased by a group of up to 20 CBP officers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego. And in June 2010, Sergio Adrían Hernández Güereca, a 15-year-old boy, was fatally shot by a CBP officer after reportedly throwing rocks at officers near the El Paso Port of Entry. The Department of Justice last month announced it would not pursue criminal charges against the officer involved.

Despite there being fewer border apprehensions in 2011 than in any year since 1971, and despite border apprehensions dropping by 80 percent since 2000, the number of border patrol agents has more than doubled since 2004.

“There is an urgent need for CBP to be subjected to increased oversight and accountability in an effort to curb the abuses that are occurring regularly along the border,” said Judy Robinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “CBP officers are not exempt from adhering to basic constitutional requirements.”
The ACLU’s complaint calls for an investigation of each of the individual allegations of abuse, and calls for the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General to undertake a comprehensive investigation of ports of entry complaints and implement institutional changes in training, oversight and accountability that are necessary to prevent further abuses.
 
A copy of the ACLU complaint is available online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/customs-and-border-protection-complaint
 
 

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ALBUQUERQUE, NM – A 48-year-old Santa Fe woman with advanced ovarian cancer has joined a case asking a court to clarify the ability of mentally competent, terminally ill patients to obtain aid in dying from their physician if they find their dying process unbearable. Aja Riggs, whose cancer is advanced and aggressive, joined two prominent Albuquerque physicians, Dr. Katherine Morris and Dr. Aroop Mangalik, as a plaintiff in the case. Kathryn Tucker, legal director of the national nonprofit Compassion & Choices, and Laura Ives, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, are serving as co-counsel in the case.

Ms. Riggs was diagnosed in August, 2011; surgery in October and subsequent developments revealed the severity and aggressiveness of her cancer. Since then doctors have treated her with radiation and chemotherapy. For much of the time she has suffered debilitating exhaustion. In December she suffered neutropenia — an immune system “crash” — requiring hospitalization.

“That experience,” said Ms. Riggs, “and the amount of pain and intensive medical treatment, has made me think: If this disease is going to take my life, I don’t need to go to the very end with it. I understand people can’t know how they’ll feel until they get there. So I don’t know. But I know I want to have the choice.”

The plaintiffs request a ruling that physicians who provide a prescription for medication to a mentally competent, terminally ill patient, which the patient could consume to bring about a peaceful death, would not be subject to criminal prosecution under existing New Mexico law, which makes a crime of assisting another to ‘commit suicide.’ The choice of a dying patient for a peaceful death is no kind of ‘suicide,’ the case asserts, and the physician does not assist such a patient in ‘committing suicide.’

“When I heard about this case on the radio it answered the dilemma I’ve been struggling with,” said Ms. Riggs. “I’ve been thinking so much about having some control over the end of my life, and I felt I couldn’t talk about it with the people closest to me. I thought if it came to choosing a peaceful death, I would have to do it on my own to keep from implicating anyone else. To end that sense of fear and isolation that people have — about one of the most important incidents in our lives — it makes so much sense.”
 
The filing and supporting declarations can be viewed here: http://CompassionAndChoices.org/Morris

Photos of Aja Riggs appear here:

Aja Riggs 1
Aja Riggs 2
Aja Riggs 3
 

Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life. We support, educate and advocate.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sent letters to county jails throughout the State of New Mexico, discouraging them from routinely strip searching arrestees without reasonable suspicion that they possess contraband. Despite  a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that broadened strip search authority under the federal Constitution, the ACLU asserts that the New Mexico State Constitution would altogether prohibit routine, suspicionless strip searches.
 
“Our State Constitution holds our law enforcement officials to higher standards,” said ACLU of New Mexico Executive Director Peter Simonson. “In New Mexico, we know that subjecting people to routine strip searches without reasonable suspicion is wrong. It is humiliating, degrading and dehumanizing.”
 
New Mexico courts have consistently interpreted Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico State Constitution (our state constitutional equivalent to the Fourth Amendment) to guarantee a ‘broad right’ to be ‘free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.’ Legal analysis of the state constitution has led ACLU of New Mexico attorneys to conclude that New Mexico courts would likely find suspicionless strip searches of people arrested for minor offenses unreasonable.
 
The case that prompted the Supreme Court ruling involved a man named Albert Florence, who was arrested in 2005 due to a police computer error that showed he failed to pay a fine he had already taken care of. Though innocent, Florence was held for six days and strip searched twice, made to squat naked and cough as jail officials examined his body. Throughout the country, an estimated 700,000 individuals are sent to jail for relatively minor infractions every year. Often people are found to be innocent of charges or the court drops the charges against them.
 
“This is something that could happen to anybody,” said ACLU of New Mexico Managing Attorney Laura Schauer Ives. “For something as small as forgetting to pay a traffic fine, you could find yourself standing naked before a government employee. We want to make sure that jail officials understand that this is unacceptable in New Mexico.”
 
In its letter, the ACLU of New Mexico declares its commitment to ensuring that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling does not give rise to gratuitous use of strip searches and violations under the New Mexico constitution in New Mexico’s jails.

Read the letter here: Letter to NM Jails
 

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