The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona released a damning 31-page report Wednesday outlining how hundreds of complaints made against Customs and Border Protection agents went forgotten.
Documents obtained through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit found 142 complaints filed against the Border Patrol's Yuma and Tucson Sectors between 2011 and 2014. Only one instance of any sort of discipline was found; an agent received a one-day suspension for pulling over a retired Border Patrol agent's son. The complainant it was an unjustified stop.
Among other stories sent to Department of Homeland officials are: a terrified mother and daughter who were told "only criminals and people trying to hide things get nervous;" a man pulled over seven times in a year who was told that "the time he is driving to work is a peak time for smuggling;" an individual whose phone was confiscated after recording roving patrol agents; and a motorist who was told he was "required to have a job" to cross the checkpoint.
"A Border Patrol agent in Green Valley, Ariz., followed a store employee into a parking lot, approached the individual with a service revolver drawn, ordered him to his knees, and handcuffed him," the report read. "When other employees approached, the agent yelled, "Stay away or I'll shoot you." After ten minutes, the agent removed the handcuffs, released the employee, and drove away."
Apart from numerous civil rights violations found, the numbers shows highly-touted checkpoints are - for the most part - ineffective.
Only about 800, or 0.67 percent, of the 120,939 undocumented immigration apprehensions made in the Tucson Sector in 2013 occurred at checkpoints. Opposition to these stops comes from fears of harassment, racial profiling, and abuse of power, mainly because agents are free to investigate whomever they see as a threat.
Most of the ACLU's recommendations involved handling civil rights complaints with transparency, also suggesting they collect data for all roving patrol stops and have that information readily available. In general, they are asking for systematic reform and accountability on every level.
"Border Patrol's own records show that the agency's extra-constitutional police practices often result in abuses of border residents far into the interior of the country and with no consequences for the agents involved," ACLU attorney James Lyall said in a statement. "At a time of increasing national attention to police accountability, Congress and the Obama administration should not allow the Border Patrol to conceal this ugly reality from the American public."