New Report Shines Light on 30,000 Border Patrol Abuses

On March 21, 2011, Carlos La Madrid, 19 years old and unarmed, was running from U.S. Border Patrol officers and attempting to cross a ladder into Mexico from Arizona. He was shot in the back four times and passed away.

A sudden flurry of media attention on operations between Border Patrol agents and apprehended subjects followed in the days following the tragic incident and seemed to dissipate almost as quickly. But for the ministry group of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, No More Deaths, documenting abuse on the border since 2006 has been an ongoing, almost daily, and often heart-wrenching fact -- and a new petition by the group on Change.org calls on Border Patrol to address this reality with concrete actions.

The group's new comprehensive report "Culture of Cruelty," produced in collaboration with expert researches who interviewed more than 30,000 migrants who came in contact with Border Patrol, reveals that victims report many of the same patterns of abuse: denial of water and food even when migrants are dangerously dehydrated, denial of access to medical help for severe injuries, verbal abuse and threats of death, separation from family members, denial of due process, no return of personal belongings, intentional funneling of migrants to deadly regions.

Graphic photos disturbingly show the physical after-effects of a denial of medial help. No More Deaths has also frequently photographed and videotaped Border Patrol agents destroying gallons of water and cans of beans left in the desert to save the lives of migrants--142 have died since last year, most often of dehydration. But this is minor compared to the abuses in the new report.

And some of the most harrowing stories come from children: “They treated me like a dog...They asked if [I] wanted water, but when [I] responded ‘yes,’ they wouldn’t give [me] any,” reports a 6-year-old from Guatemala.

“We were held with another woman who was coughing so badly that she threw up violently, over and over. The others in the cell called for help. An officer came over and said, ‘Que se muera!’ - ‘Let her die!’” says a woman interviewed with two others in Nogales.

Last month, two Arizona Border Patrol officers were charged with five civil rights violations by a federal grand jury for forcing men apprehended at the border "to eat marijuana and flee barefoot and nearly naked into the chilly Arizona desert." But according to the "Culture of Cruelty" study, abuse is reported as the norm and not the exception, and most victims never see justice.

“We didn’t go out looking for these stories. They came to us and they were inescapable,” said Hannah Hafter, who coauthored the report. She says much of the reported abuse plainly fits the international definition of torture.

"This has nothing to do with how you or I feel about immigration policy," added Dan Furmansky of the Unitarian Universalist Church's Standing on the Side of Love project that started the petition on Change.org. "This has to do with the dignity of people. The overwhelming amount of Americans don't want to see this abuse of innocent women and children in their name."

No More Deaths and Standing on the Side of Love are calling on the Chief of Border Patrol to agree to meet with researchers to address the findings of the report, in the hopes of establishing new standards for oversight. Join the more than 1,000 supporters who have already signed and are demanding an end to a culture of cruelty on the border.

Photo Courtesy of No More Deaths