The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: OC Weekly

For months, Customs and Border Protection (which oversees the Border Patrol) repeatedly blocked attempts by Phoenix New Times to find out the number and nature of complaints for excessive force or inhumane treatment filed by undocumented immigrants against border agents.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, as is the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, set up to investigate complaints about any Homeland Security employee. But the latter office, while it maintains general statistics on the number of cases it handles and how many it closes, says it does not account for which cases are filed by migrants and what their specific outcomes are—which is astonishing because CBP's mission is dealing with immigrants.

But by perusing reports published by the civil rights office, Phoenix New Times discovered that since October 2004, 103 agents or officers from CBP were arrested for such offenses as smuggling, money-laundering and conspiracy.
As for prosecutions of Border Patrol agents, the closest Phoenix New Times could come was a U.S. Department of Justice statement that "at least" eight agents had been prosecuted since '04.

Seven of these cases involved the beating, sexual assault or attempted murder of immigrants in Border Patrol custody. They do not include the still-under-investigation case in which the San Diego agents were caught on videotape savagely beating a compliant Hernandez Rojas, who later died.





Read more: http://www.ocweekly.com/2010-12-16/news/amongst-us-border-patrol-abuses/

[emilyg]

1. A border patrol was killed yesterday.

[AlphaCentauri]

2. There is great concern for the murder of the BP officer

Congressman Calls on Obama to Take Illegal Immigration 'Seriously' Following Death of Border Agent


The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent is a "sad reminder" of the dangers law enforcement officers face on a daily basis and called on the Obama administration to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Elect Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said the killing of Brian A. Terry in southern Arizona late Tuesday should serve as wake-up call to President Obama and his administration.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/15/congressman-calls-obama-illegal-immigration-seriously-following-death-border/

[emilyg]

3. Thanks for link.