10 Lawsuits Filed against Border Patrol for Abuse. “Citizenship Checkups”
A set of lawsuits filed last week against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allege that CBP agents have engaged in widespread abuse, including excessive use of force, unlawful detention, and coercive techniques to force individuals to give up their rights, against both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants who are in custody. The legal actions, filed last Tuesday, include lawsuits filed in federal district courts and administrative complaints filed directly with the Department of Homeland Security, of which CBP is a part.
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4-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Emily Ruiz, Deported And Mistreated While Detained
After a visit to her parents’ native Guatemala with her grandfather, four-year-old Emily Ruiz was detained by CBP agents at Dulles Airport for 20 hours. Despite the child’s “bouts of hysterical and prolonged crying,” agents refused to let her speak to her parents for 14 hours, put her in a cold room (with her grandfather), that had no bed, blanket or pillow, and gave her nothing to eat except a cookie and a soda.
After first promising to put her on a plane to New York, where she was born and lived with her parents, CBP agents later told her father they could not return her to “illegals,” and gave him one hour to choose between having her sent back to Guatemala or to an “adoption center.” Fearing he would lose his child forever, and not knowing that CBP’s threats were illegal, Mr. Ruiz chose Guatemala. When she was finally allowed to return to her native United States three weeks later, Emily was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder.
U.S. Citizen Lucy Rogers Subjected To “Citizenship Checkup”
Lucy Rogers, a Mexican-born U.S. citizen who works as a medical interpreter for immigrant farmworkers, alleges that in December 2011 she was pulled over in upstate New York by CBP for a “citizenship checkup.” An agent arrested her and the two farmworkers she was taking to a medical appointment, on suspicion of human trafficking. The agents ripped her car keys out of her hand, held her for several hours and confiscated the GPS unit of her car. Although Rogers was released, she says she’s taking part in the legal action because, “I’m thinking about my son and so many other kids who are born here.”
http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/10-lawsuits-filed-against-border-patrol-for-abuse-130325?news=849530
