The ACLU has filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Homeland Security expressing “serious concerns” about abuses committed by Border Patrol agents during what are known as “roving patrol” stops in southern Arizona.
Border Patrol agents have pulled over Arizona residents, often U.S. citizens, and unlawfully searched their vehicles, used excessive force and engaged in other misconduct, including at least one reported incident of sexual abuse, according to incidents documented by the ACLU.
The allegations come just weeks after the Border Patrol settled a lawsuit in Washington state with human rights groups over the practice of roving patrols. The ACLU and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project claimed in the suit that agents were stopping drivers and interrogating them for no apparent basis other than their skin color.
In settling the suit, the Border Patrol agreed to train agents on the Fourth Amendment’s provisions against unreasonable search and seizure, adhere to the Homeland Security department’s guidelines on considering race or ethnicity on the job, and report all stops made in the area for the next 18 months.
The new complaint in Tuscon covers only a few of a series of complaints that the local ACLU office has received since it opened four months earlier, said James Lyall, the office’s staff attorney. Among them: A U.S. citizen who was stopped by agents as she drove her children home from school. When she asked the reason for the stop, she said the agent threatened to shock her with a Taser, searched her car and then left her with a flat tire on the side of the road. Another citizen alleged that agents pulled her from her car without explanation, and handcuffed and groped her.
“Unlawful roving patrol stops by Border Patrol are a longstanding problem,” Lyall said. “The picture that emerges from these incidents and years of litigation is of pervasive abuse and a systemic failure of oversight and accountability at all levels of CBP.”
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