WOLA Border Oversight

Time 2022-09-30 02:26:54

Web Name: WOLA Border Oversight

WebSite: http://www.borderoversight.org

ID:334262

Keywords:

WOLA,Border,Oversight

Description:

WOLA Border Oversight

A database of events at the U.S.-Mexico border that should alarm us

The Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based research and advocacy organization, has operated a Migration and Border Security Program since 2011. We uncover information about the U.S.-Mexico border, visit often, and publish numerous analyses and weekly updates. Learn about our “Beyond the Wall” campaign here.

While doing this work, we’re barraged with firsthand testimonies, reports from partner organizations, media coverage, and government documents reporting or alleging abusive or improper behavior by members of the U.S. government’s border law enforcement agencies: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its Border Patrol component.

The resource hosted here is an effort to gather and systematize credible allegations and documented cases. We are maintaining a database of troubling events that have occurred at the border since 2020. Each entry records the type of abuse allegedly committed, the geographic area in which the event occurred, the agency reputedly involved, characteristics of the victims, and the last known step taken to achieve accountability. (Those are in the boxes on this page’s right column, or at the bottom of this page on a mobile device.)

The database’s contents are difficult and disturbing to read. Some events included here are very serious, like alleged use-of-force incidents or misuse of intelligence capabilities. Others, like denials of medical care, lying to asylum seekers, abusive language, or failing to return belongings, are less serious but more frequent, pointing to deeper organizational culture issues. Accountability usually lags, and agencies are opaque about investigations and their outcomes.

Our purpose here is not to attack or malign CBP officers and Border Patrol agents as individuals. Nearly all whom we’ve come to know are decent, honorable people. Undeniably, some of what appears on this site is the result of a “green wall of silence” that protects a minority of abusive personnel. But much of it is the result of work in an agency that was born in 2003 without an internal affairs capacity, that grew quickly in the post-September 11 period, that has often been run by acting officials, that has been courted by anti-immigrant politicians, and that has lacked the tools to deal with the rapidly changing profile of migrants who are coming to the border. Good individuals are thrown into a toxic, dehumanizing organizational culture, and the results are in this database.

This resource would not exist without the diligent work of citizens, organizations, and journalists in the border region who are recording what they hear, filing complaints and reports. Their work is crucial to upholding the dignity of people who have fled their homes—in many cases fearing for their lives—and who deserve fair treatment when they arrive at the U.S. border. Perusing the database will show more abuse events in some parts of the border than others: that reflects the presence of citizen monitors more than it reflects U.S. border agencies’ behavior across geographic sectors.

As we launch this resource in April 2022, WOLA expects it to form the core of broader work on law enforcement conduct, culture, and accountability at the U.S.-Mexico border. We are exploring the origins and causes of the behaviors narrated here, from management to recruitment to messaging to incentives. We are also learning about policy changes needed to improve accountability. Our goal is to make border management more effective, more professional, less politicized, and more humane.

Featured items

“Taken Away: U.S. Border Agents’ Widespread Confiscation of Migrants’ Valuable Personal Items“: An August 25 commentary from WOLA draws from the database for a series of troubling examples of agents’ confiscation, non-return, and disposal of migrants’ valuables and documents.“The Tragedy in Texas Was Avoidable, Just Like Hundreds of Other Migrant Deaths on U.S. Soil This Year,” reads a June 28 commentary from WOLA, published in the wake of the horrific death of 53 migrants in a cargo container in Texas, about the sharp increase in migrant deaths along the border this year.Read this database’s updated narrative about the September 2021 incident in which Border Patrol agents on horseback charged at Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, the subject of a July CBP Office of Professional Responsibility report.This resource went public on April 28, 2022. We accompanied it with a commentary (español) and a video walking the reader through some of this project’s main findings and conclusions. “We keep hearing about indicators of a troubled culture at CBP and Border Patrol. It’s a scattered mass of troubling items, dispersed like puzzle pieces, and often forgotten. WOLA staff felt we needed to capture all that we’d been hearing. So for much of the past year we’ve been recording every credible allegation that has come our way. This database is the result.”In addition to the database, this site also hosts an archive of reports about U.S.-Mexico border security and migration from WOLA, from other non-governmental organizations, and from journalists, along with hosted copies of official government documents. We also maintain a collection of infographics about border security and migration trends.Read about Border Patrol’s “Critical Incident Teams,” secretive units that have been found to interfere with investigations as they seek information that might exonerate agents accused of abuse.The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) obtained documents from the DHS Office of Inspector-General (OIG) indicating that the agency’s independent watchdog has been suppressing, delaying, and watering down information about serious patterns of sexual harassment and domestic abuse within the Department’s law enforcement agencies.“Numerous migrants arriving in Nogales in the last two weeks after being expelled reported that Border Patrol agents took their belongings and did not return them upon expulsions to Nogales, Sonora, México,” the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported in March. See cases in the database of non-return of belongings and confiscation of documents.Cases of dangerous deportation are frequent. Migrants are often sent back across the border into dangerous Mexican border communities in the middle of the night, after shelters and services are closed, and at times while clothed in garments that identifies them to potential assailants as recent deportees.Diligent work by the Kino Border Initiative and other Arizona organizations and journalists has revealed a large number of abuse allegations in Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.

310 items in the database

Event Types

Abuse of Minor (35)Abusive Language (49)Civil Liberties or Privacy Infringement (2)Compelling Signature of English-Language Documents (2)Conditions in Custody (59)Conditions of Arrest or Apprehension (20)Confiscation of Documents (16)Corruption (2)Crowd Control (2)Dangerous Deportation (32)Denial of Access to Counsel (3)Denial of Food or Water (17)Denial of Medical Care (39)Denial of Protection to Most Vulnerable (74)Disregard of Public Health (9)Endangerment (6)Evading Oversight (14)Expulsion of Unaccompanied Minor (7)Falsification of Asylum Paperwork (1)Family Separation (41)Fatal Encounter (4)Inappropriate Deportation (7)Insubordinate or Highly Politicized Conduct (11)Intimidation of Humanitarian Workers (3)LGBT Discrimination or Harassment (3)Lying or Deliberate Misleading (20)Misallocation of Funds (1)Misuse of Intelligence Capability (3)Non-Return of Belongings (31)Pedestrian Strike (3)Racial Discrimination or Profiling (10)Religious Freedom Violation (1)Return of Vulnerable Individuals (12)Rough Rides (2)Sexual Assault or Harassment (7)Threat of Violence (7)Unethical Off-Duty Behavior (8)Use of Force (40)Vehicle Pursuit (18)Vigilantism Tolerance or Collaboration (2)Violation of Court Order (1)Wrongful Strip Search (4)

Geographic Areas

Border-Wide (79)Border Patrol (0)CBP (0)Del Rio (18)El Centro (3)El Paso (20)El Paso Field Office (19)Laredo (6)Laredo Field Office (2)Northern Border (1)Outside the United States (1)Rio Grande Valley (18)San Diego (18)San Diego Field Office (16)Tucson (119)Tucson Field Office (13)Yuma (7)

Agencies

Border Patrol (189)BORTAC (2)CBP (86)Critical Incident Teams (4)DHS (17)ICE (18)National Targeting Center (1)Office of Field Operations (37)Processing Coordinators (1)Tactical Terrorism Response Teams (2)

Last Known Accountability Actions

Before Inter-American Human Rights System (1)Cleared by DHS OIG (3)Complaint Filed with CRCL (68)Complaint Filed with OPR (31)Congressional Investigation Closed (2)Criminal Charges Dropped (1)Criminal Charges Pending (4)Criminal Conviction (3)DHS OIG investigation Closed (9)GAO Investigation Closed (2)Judicial Case Closed (3)Lawsuit or Claim Filed (5)No Further Action (10)No Steps Taken (10)OPR Investigation Closed (8)Personnel Terminated (3)Shared with CBP (1)Shared with Congressional Oversight Committees (69)Shared with CRCL (1)Shared with DHS OIG (68)Shared with OPR (1)Suspension, Reprimand, or Counseling (3)Under Congressional Investigation (1)Under DHS Review (1)Under FBI Investigation (6)Under GAO Investigation (1)Under ICE-HSI Investigation (1)Under Judicial Review (2)Under Local Police investigation (8)Under OPR Investigation (29)Unknown (175)

Victim Classifications

Accompanied Child (18)Advocate or Humanitarian Worker (3)Angola (1)Black (26)Brazil (2)Cameroon (1)Colombia (3)Costa Rica (1)Cuba (9)DHS Employee (2)Disability (4)Domestic Violence Victim (9)Ecuador (5)El Salvador (24)Family Unit (91)Female (61)Guatemala (58)Haiti (16)Honduras (36)Indigenous (5)Ivory Coast (1)Jamaica (1)Journalist (2)Kidnap Victim (8)LGBTQ (10)Married Adults (2)Medical Condition (22)Mexico (36)Middle Eastern (1)Nicaragua (10)Nigeria (2)Pregnancy (19)Romania (3)Russia (2)Sexual Abuse Victim (7)Sikh (1)Single Adult (109)Somalia (1)U.S. Citizen or Resident (22)Unaccompanied Child (41)Venezuela (8)

TAGS:WOLA Border Oversight

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