New York Times
By Julia Preston
September 2, 2014
Investigators have found no evidence to support a complaint that young migrants crossing the border illegally had been subject to “systemic abuse” in detention, according to a report released Tuesday by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. The report also found that conditions had improved notably since mid-July in border stations where the young migrants were detained.
The finding was based on 57 unannounced visits by inspectors from July 17 to Aug. 20 to 41 detention facilities run by Customs and Border Protection. The inspector general’s office also investigated 16 of the most serious claims made in a complaint filed in June by groups that included the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center.
“We were unable to substantiate any of the allegations,” the report said, without further explanation. The inspector general presented the results of the investigation to federal prosecutors who declined to bring any charges against border agents “based on the absence of criminal activities,” according to the report.
The complaint, on behalf of 116 minors who had crossed illegally without their parents, said they were subjected to verbal abuse, denied medical care and held in “unsanitary, overcrowded and freezing cold cells.” Four youths said they faced physical abuse. Most minors were held in Border Patrol stations in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
In a surge of young migrants during the summer, frontline Border Patrol stations there were often overwhelmed, with cold and bare holding cells crowded to more than double their normal capacity.
Inspectors found that most facilities met required standards for detention of unaccompanied minors, with operable sinks and toilets and access to emergency medical care and telephones.
Border officials had expanded cleaning of detention cells to several times a day. After many complaints of cold temperatures in the cells — which are often called “hieleras,” or refrigerators — all young people were provided with some kind of blankets, the inspectors found. But the report said temperatures in the stations remained “inconsistent.”
Border Patrol agents provided at least one hot meal a day to minors, and “the quantity of food was sufficient,” according to the report.
However, border agents expressed frustration that there were not enough staff members to handle the influx while also continuing normal patrols and enforcement operations.
The report was not the final conclusion on the advocacy groups’ complaint, with other Department of Homeland Security agencies still investigating more than 100 additional allegations. But advocates said they were disappointed by the inspector general’s findings.
“We are at a loss as to how the agency came to those conclusions,” said Claudia Valenzuela, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “We continue to receive reports from children about these abuses.”
James Lyall, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, said, “It shows that the agency still has not grappled with widespread problems that have been documented for years.”
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