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Media Inquiries

Contact NIJC Communications Director Tara Tidwell Cullen at (312) 833-2967 or by email.

 

A group of civil and human rights organizations denounced a new report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, saying the office’s failure to adequately investigate allegations of verbal and physical abuse of unaccompanied immigrant children by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers is an indictment of the agency’s commitment to child welfare.

The brief Inspector General report dismisses charges of mistreatment and abusive detention conditions by 16 children who were held in CBP custody after crossing the southern U.S. border. The abuse allegations were part of a mass civil rights complaint on behalf of 116 children who entered the country in the past year, before an influx in child migrants began making headlines.

“What the Inspector General’s office promised would be a transparent investigation to address some very serious allegations of child abuse is turning out to be a perfunctory process in which the agency provides little information about how or why it is reaching its conclusions,” said Ashley Huebner, managing attorney of the Immigrant Children’s Protection Project at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “The investigators seem to discount our clients’ charges of abuse simply because they are children. These failures of justice mean thousands of other children who come to our country alone to escape violence in their home countries remain vulnerable to abuse by border patrol officers.”

Investigators’ interviews with the children, whose allegations were detailed in sworn affidavits, lacked meaningful depth and were unduly adversarial, observed lawyers who participated in the interviews. And while the Inspector General’s report claims that children’s complaints of unsanitary conditions and inadequate food were unsubstantiated, it contradicts itself by lauding improvements in both of these areas. Meanwhile, the legal aid groups representing the children named in the complaint continue to receive reports from other children of verbal and physical abuse and poor health conditions at CBP detention centers.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration would rather sweep these complaints under the rug than treat them with the gravity they deserve,” said Caitlin Sanderson, program director, Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project. “Our country’s legal system is supposed to protect children from abuse, but what about when the abusers are members of the government? Failing to adequately investigate these complaints sets a dangerous precedent.

The mass complaint was filed by the National Immigrant Justice Center, the ACLU Border Litigation Project, Americans for Immigrant Justice, Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. An additional 100 complaints remain pending with other DHS investigative offices.

For more information contact:
Tara Tidwell Cullen, National Immigrant Justice Center by email or (312) 660-1337
Steve Kilar, ACLU of Arizona by email or (602) 492-8540

 

Download a copy of the complaint here.

Listen to a recording of the press teleconference about the complaint (Note: audio starts at :40 seconds).

Learn more about unaccompanied immigrant children.