Excerpts From Administrative Letter
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dotty Griffith; (713) 942-8416 x 103 or (832) 291-4776; [email protected]
Brownsville
Abuse of Power and Lack of Due Process
CBP officers at the Brownsville & Matamoros International (B&M) Bridge POE in Brownsville, Texas have repeatedly coerced United States citizens into “confessing” that they were not born in the United States during lengthy, abusive interrogations; denied them entry; and confiscated their documents, without ever providing them a hearing or any form of due process.
On June 7, 2009, Luis Espinoza, a 16-year old boy, was crossing the Gateway International Bridge from Matamoros to Brownsville. He presented a wallet-sized Texas Birth Certificate and a receipt from the U.S. Post Office showing that he had applied for his passport. The CBP officer sent Luis to secondary, and kept him in detention for more than two-and-a-half hours during which time officers interrogated him about the validity of his documents. The officer confiscated Luis’ birth certificate, declared it fraudulent, and told Luis to “go back to Mexico,” leaving Luis without any identification documents and unable to return to his home in the United States. Luis’ attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus and a federal court ordered that he be admitted into the United States to be allowed to prove his citizenship on August 20, 2009. However, the CBP Port Director, Michael Freeman, refused to admit Luis and failed to return to him the confiscated birth certificate as ordered by the court until a motion for contempt was filed and he was ordered to show cause. Luis’ citizenship was confirmed, and he was issued a passport on July 20, 2011. The ACLU of Texas has received similar accounts of CBP document seizure from organizations that work with border communities.
On August 24, 2009, Trinidad Muraira de Castro, her daughters Yuliana and Laura, and Yuliana’s four-week old daughter Camila Abigail Gonzalez presented their documentation for entry at the B&M Bridge POE in Brownsville, Texas. Ms. Muraira de Castro is a Mexican citizen with a border crossing card (or “laser visa”) permitting her entry to the United States. Laura, Yuliana, and Camila are all U.S. citizens. CBP Officer Eliseo Cabrera sent the family to secondary inspection, allegedly because Yuliana’s Texas birth certificate indicated that she was delivered by a midwife. The family was detained and interrogated, during which time CBP officer Cabrera intimidated them, threatened to separate them, and made false representations to coerce Laura and Yuliana to “admit” they were not U.S. citizens and to force Trinidad to admit her daughters were not born in the United States. After approximately 10 hours, Ms. Muraira de Castro broke down and “confessed” that her daughters were not born in the United States even though her daughters were in fact born in the United States. Based on this coerced confession, Laura and Yuliana were denied entry to the United States and Ms. Muraira de Castro’s laser visa was confiscated.
On September 17, 2009, Rodrigo Sampayo Ortiz, a U.S. citizen, presented his documentation for entry into the United States at the B&M Bridge POE in Brownsville, Texas. Mr. Ortiz was detained for more than eight hours while a CBP officer threatened and intimidated him into falsely confessing he was not born in the United States, even though he was in fact born in the United States. Mr. Ortiz’s documents were confiscated.
On October 31, 2009, Ana Maria Alanis and her daughter Jessica Alanis Garcia presented their documentation for entry at the B&M Bridge POE. Like the Castro family and Mr. Ortiz, Ms. Alanis and her daughter were detained for hours and threatened with separation. Ms. Alanis refused to “confess” that her daughter was not born in the United States because Jessica was in fact born in the United States. The CBP official denied Jessica entry into the United States until her citizenship was adjudicated by an Immigration judge.
The Castro family, the Alanis family, and Mr. Ortiz have filed suit in the Southern District of Texas, alleging that their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were violated.
El Paso Area
Abuse of Power and Lack of Due Process
In June 2010, Sergio Adrían Hernández Güereca, a 15-year-old boy, was fatally shot by a CBP officer after reportedly throwing rocks at officers near the El Paso Point of Entry (POE). Online videotape of the incident is not consistent with the government’s assertion that the boy was threatening the officers. The Mexican government formally requested an “in depth, impartial and objective” investigation into the deaths and the families of both Mr. Hernandez-Rojas and Adrian Hernandez Güereca have filed lawsuits against the U.S. government.
On July 15, 2011, Jane Doe arrived at the CBP offices at the Ysleta-Zaragoza POE. She was there to meet with Sgt. Felipe Gonzalez, a New Mexico State sheriff, about an ongoing criminal investigation into an alleged sexual assault that had been perpetrated on her by a CBP officer while detained at a fixed checkpoint near Truth or Consequences, NM. The meeting had been arranged in advance with CBP officials at the POE by Sgt. Gonzalez, thus CBP was aware of the nature of the meeting (as Ms. Doe is not able to cross into the United States legally, and Sgt. Gonzalez is prohibited from crossing into Mexico, the POE was the only feasible location for their meeting).
This marked Ms. Doe’s second meeting at the Zaragoza POE. Both times, Ms. Doe had traveled from Chihuahua, Mexico to attend the meetings. The first meeting had occurred on June 8, 2011, during which time Ms. Doe had met with investigators from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) who were conducting an internal investigation into the alleged assault. That meeting transpired without incident.
On the morning of July 15, 2011, Ms. Doe arrived for a second meeting at the Zaragoza POE. She was accompanied by her husband, aunt and a representative from the ACLU. Ms. Doe sat with her husband and aunt in a waiting room just outside the offices while the ACLU representative notified an officer at one of the service windows of their arrival and the purpose of the visit. Ms. Doe was nervous, both because she was about to have to recount her ordeal in detention and because, since the incident, she felt extremely uncomfortable around CBP officers.
Sgt. Gonzalez arrived a couple of minutes later, and joined them in the waiting room. The CBP officer at the window then notified the ACLU representative that they would have to undergo a “pat-down” prior to entering the offices. When the ACLU representative asked the officer why they had not been searched during their previous visit to the offices on June 8, he responded that there had been a “policy change.” The ACLU representative then notified Ms. Doe that they would all be patted down prior to entering the offices, and Ms. Doe hesitantly nodded her head “okay.” The ACLU representative told her not to worry and assured her that everything would be fine.
Ms. Doe, her relatives, the ACLU representative and Sgt. Gonzalez then entered the CBP offices and were asked to sit in some chairs right near the entrance. At that point, it was made clear that only Ms. Doe and her relatives would be patted-down in a private, enclosed and windowless room adjacent to the main entrance. Ms. Doe began to cry at the thought of being left alone again with CBP officers while they searched her. Roughly six to eight CBP officers stood nearby, surrounding the seated group and staring at them in a menacing fashion, and with their arms crossed. The ACLU representative got up to go over to Ms. Doe and comfort her, but one officer commanded her to “sit back down.”
The ACLU representative tried to intervene on Ms. Doe’s behalf, telling the CBP officer who seemed to be in charge, an older gentleman with gray hair, that Ms. Doe had been the victim of a crime, and asked if they could forego searching her for that reason. He refused. Sgt. Gonzalez then took the same officer aside and told him the nature of the investigation – that he was investigating an alleged sexual assault by a CBP officer – to try to persuade him not to search Ms. Doe. He still refused. The ACLU representative then asked if she could be present during the search. That request was refused as well.
Ms. Doe was taken into a private room by two female Border Patrol officers. Both officers had on reflective sunglasses so that Ms. Doe was unable to see their eyes. They were both much bigger than the petite, five foot Ms. Doe. Ms. Doe was in the room with them for about five minutes. Their demeanor was intimidating. They interrogated her several times about the reason for her visit. They asked her how she had traveled there, and with whom she had traveled. They asked her the same questions over and over again, and told her not to lie to them.
They patted her down, searched the inside of her pockets and counted all of the money in her pockets. They made her take off her sneakers and searched the insides. When Ms. Doe finally emerged, tears were streaming down her face. The officers next searched Ms. Doe’s husband and aunt in a similar fashion.
After all three individuals had been searched, they escorted the group to the conference room for their meeting, after which Sgt. Gonzalez escorted Ms. Doe and her relatives back out to the Mexican side of the POE, and they went on their way. Following that meeting, Ms. Doe, traumatized by what had occurred on that day, no longer wanted to proceed with the criminal investigation. She asked Sgt. Gonzalez to close the investigation, which he did.
