FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Tom Hargis, Director of Communications, ACLU of Texas, 832.291.4776, [email protected]
Houston – Widespread abuse of unaccompanied immigrant children at the hands of U.S. border officials spurred a group of civil and human rights organizations to file a complaint today on behalf of more than 100 children, each of whom reported experiencing abuse and mistreatment while in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the border enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). View the complaint.
The following statement can be attributed to Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:
“Abuse and mistreatment of children arriving at our borders, many fleeing dire circumstances in countries where their lives are in danger, is simply appalling and un-American. The government must do more to reform the culture of impunity that has become the hallmark of Customs and Border Protection. Border agents should be held to the same standards of integrity that we expect from all law enforcement.”
The following statement can be attributed to Astrid Dominguez, advocacy coordinator for the ACLU of Texas:
“For the sake of these children, we hope that federal officials use this complaint as a trigger to institute needed reforms and hold accountable those border agents who abuse children and immigrants. This is a time for compassion and American values, not obstruction, unaccountability, and indifference.”
Today’s administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—the department’s only mechanism for seeking redress—was filed by the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), the ACLU Border Litigation Project, Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice), Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project (Esperanza), and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (Florence Project).
