Report: Migrants Held by Border Agencies Hit, Threatened and Sexually Assaulted
Several remembered being hit or kicked. Some alleged sexual violence threats. Others said they were refused food. One man even said that a border guards dog bit his testicle.
A new report from Human Rights Watch paints a grim picture of the situation of migrants and asylum seekers being held by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Guard and Immigration and Customs (ICE) officials.
The report, released Thursday, examines 160 internal reports of misconduct and abuse by asylum seekers in custody by the US government, most of them dated between 2016 and 2021. HRW obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The allegations of misconduct include periods of time that occurred during the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
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In April 2017, a woman, whose name and nationality were not given in the report, recalled that a border guard threw her to the ground, pulled her back up, and then “continued to hit me on the ground.”
“He grabbed my hair,” she told an asylum officer. “And when he did that, he sucked blood from my ear and hand.”
Another asylum officer reported that “a young girl was forced to undress and was inappropriately touched by a guard,” and stated that they suspected the agent was either with the border police or with the CBP.
According to a June 2018 complaint included in the report, a border guard in Tucson, Arizona advised “an applicant … he liked.”
“He grabbed my hair.” – Asylum seekers
tweet that In another complaint, an asylum seeker from Honduras reported that staff at the CBP facility in Chula Vista, California, “gave us sons of bitches, dogs, parasites and trash. Things like this. ”
In Texas, a migrant detained in McAllen and later in Kingsville claimed to be held in an overcrowded cell of more than 60 people. The asylum seeker, a man from Honduras, remembered “scorpions, ants, ticks”. [and] Fleas ”in the cell.
After the dog of a border guard was “accidentally” bitten in the testicle, another asylum seeker stated that he had waited weeks for medical treatment. Finally, according to the complaint, “the complainant was … taken to the hospital, where his testicle had to be surgically removed.”
The heavily edited incident reports are “stunning,” said Clara Long, US deputy director of HRW, in a press release. “These internal government documents make it clear that reports of serious abuse – assault, sexual abuse and discriminatory treatment by US agents – are an open secret [the Department of Homeland Security]. ”
Speaking to Reuters, a DHS spokesman insisted that the department “does not tolerate any form of abuse or misconduct”.
Since President Joe Biden joined the Oval Office in January, Republicans across the country, including Texas, have accused his government of endangering the nation by allowing migrants and asylum seekers to pour over the southern border.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, along with other State Republicans, has blamed Biden for rising concerns on the US-Mexico border. In March Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, which includes agents from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the National Guard.
Abbott told Fox News last week that Biden “completely abandoned” Texans living in the border areas.
The governor also praised former President Donald Trump for his immigration and border policies. “But now we are seeing the highest number of border crossings and all because of the disastrous open-border policy of the Biden government,” said Abbott.
Although concerns at the borders have increased since Biden took office, the numbers rose as early as April 2020 when Trump was still president.
Meanwhile, the Biden government has defended its border and immigration policies while vowing to “take urgent action” to reverse Trump’s policies.
Speaking to reporters recently, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden wanted “a new immigration policy that is humane, that is orderly, and that has a robust asylum procedure.”
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