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Report Reveals Systematic Abuse of Detainees by U.S. Border Patrol:
Group to Release Abuse Report before Congress, Amnesty International
Tucson, AZ - A delegation of volunteers from No More Deaths, a humanitarian aid group based in Tucson, Arizona, will participate in a Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., on September 17, 1:00 PM. Their new report, "Human Rights Abuses of Migrants in Short-Term Custody on the Arizona/Sonora Border," will be released at that time. The briefing is hosted by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). The report will be shared with human rights groups in a briefing hosted by Amnesty International on September 18.
No More Deaths has supported three aid stations in border cities that receive migrants dropped off at the ports of entry by Homeland Security/Border Patrol. The first two stations opened in Nogales and Agua Prieta, Sonora, in the summer of 2006 to offer food, water and medical care to migrants repatriated back to Mexico by the United States. More than 350,000 people have come through the stations.
Humanitarian aid workers staffing the stations heard stories from migrants of abusive treatment during their apprehension, transportation and processing by Border Patrol. More than 400 individual accounts of abuse compiled over the past two years are included in the report.
“With every bus load of repatriated migrants, we hear testimonies that they weren’t given enough to eat, they had little access to water after being in the desert for days, and were denied needed medical attention,” said Maryada Vallet, an Emergency Medical Technician and organizer at the Nogales aid station. “Even more distressing, we regularly have people coming to us still crying, bleeding, or wincing in pain from abuse suffered while in US custody.”
Vallet, along with others, is making the trek to DC in hopes of “bringing the realities of the desert” to federal representatives and to ask congress to create custody standards and ongoing oversight for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Border Patrol.
Andy Silverman, an immigration law professor at the University of Arizona and No More Deaths legal advisor, will also be on the briefing panel. "It was 60 years ago that the United Nations adopted - and the United States entered into - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 provides that, ‘No one shall be subjected...to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ Everyday we hear from migrants of the cruel, inhuman and degrading way in which agents of our government have treated them, which is now documented in the No More Deaths report," Silverman said. "Thus, it is time that Congress adopts standards concerning how people will be treated who are in short-term custody of our government."
Also on the panel will be Norma Price, MD, and Sally Meisenhelder, RN. Both Dr. Price and Meisenhelder have witnessed the denial of medical care first hand. Affidavits containing testimony of their experiences are contained in the report.
No More Deaths hopes the information in their report will be used by other human rights groups who have documented the abuse and mistreatment of people in immigration detention centers around the country.
Background:
No More Deaths was founded as a coalition of humanitarian aid and immigrant rights groups in Tucson, Arizona in 2004. The group operates a humanitarian aid camp in a remote area of the Arizona desert where thousands of migrants have died while attempting to cross the border. No More Deaths, in partnership with the State of Sonora, Mexico, and various NGO's, supports three migrant aid stations in Nogales, Naco, and Agua Prieta. Hundreds of volunteers from around the world have come to spend time with No More Deaths over the past five years. No More Deaths is a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson.
Find out more information about No More Deaths and download the whole report online at www.nomoredeaths.org.
Contact: Walt Staton, Media Rep: (520) 240.1641
Sarah Roberts (Español) (520) 850.9459
