A Look Into U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Mistreatment of Children

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With more than 60,000 agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is the largest federal law enforcement agency in the United States. CBP includes the U.S. Border Patrol, which includes nearly 20,000 agents. CBP officials oversee land ports of entry, while Border Patrol agents patrol between ports. Collectively, these officials are often the first to encounter unaccompanied migrant children. If these officials suspect that the child has entered the United States without legal authorization, they take that child into custody.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, advocates documented and litigated the mistreatment of children in U.S. immigration enforcement custody. These battles culminated in a settlement agreement in a lawsuit called Flores v. Reno. Pursuant to that agreement, the U.S. government committed to treating detained migrant children with “dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability” and to detain them in the least restrictive setting.[1] Through subsequent laws, Congress required that CBP transfer unaccompanied children to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)—a non-law enforcement agency—within 72 hours of arrest, absent “exceptional circumstances.”[2] Likewise, DHS is required to safeguard minors’ safety by separating them from adult detainees at all times.[3]
CBP consistently fails to meet its obligations under the Flores settlement and federal law. In 2001, an investigation by the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General showed “deficiencies in the handing of juveniles . . . that could have potentially serious consequences for [their] well-being.”[4] In 2007, a federal judge in Texas entered a preliminary injunction after finding it was likely a group of minors could show that CBP’s detention facility was not in compliance with Flores.[5] In 2014, the National Immigrant Justice Center and the ACLU Border Litigation Project documented systemic abuses against 116 unaccompanied minors arrested or detained by CBP.[6]
In response to our FOIA request seeking records related to child abuse or mistreatment in DHS custody, CBP released about 15,700 pages of documents, along with 86 audio files (totaling approximately 1100 minutes) and 7 video files (totaling approximately 70 minutes). These documents include internal agency records recounting limited investigations into alleged child abuse and other CBP misconduct, as well as some supporting evidence compiled by officials in the course of these limited investigations.
These documents contain many stories told directly by children who experienced abuse by CBP officials. Click here for a video interview of a girl who describes how a Border Patrol agent unnecessarily forced her to fully undress upon apprehension. Her story is just one of many episodes, documented in these official government records, of egregious CBP misconduct and abuse of authority.
To view the documents and files obtained in the FOIA request, visit http://bit.ly/foiacbp.
[1] Flores v. Reno, No. cv-85-4544 (C.D. Cal. Jan 17, 1997). [2] 8 U.S.C. § 1232(b)(3). [3] See Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296 (2002); William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-457 (2008). [4] Office of the Inspector General Report, Report Number No. I-2001-009: Unaccompanied Juveniles in INS Custody (Sept. 28, 2001), https://oig.justice.gov/reports/INS/e0109/chapter1.htm. [5] Bunikyte, ex rel. Bunikiene v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 1074070 (W.D. Tex. 2007). [6] Nat’l Immigrant Just. Ctr. et al., Systemic Abuse of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (June 11, 2014), bit.ly/XqyyOt.