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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Mexican immigrants abused by US officials, report says



According to a report published on Tuesday by the US Immigration Policy Center, a selective interrogation of more than 1,000 Mexican immigrants who have been deported from the US has shown that 11% of them had been abused in this or that way by US officials while being detained or kept in processing centers.

Besides various kinds of physical abuse like being hit, kicked, pushed or dragged, 23% of the respondents said that police officers also abused them verbally like "f-----g wetback" or "Mexican pieces of s---".
3% of the respondents said that they have been sexually abused by US officials. 34% say that officials took away at least one of their belongings without giving it back.

A 35-year-old man whose name is Javier says that he has decided to visit his friends in New York but was detained by a border patrol in Nogales and taken to a processing center.

Javier said that within the entire night, the officers didn't let him and other detainees sleep, making them march or clean the room instead. The officers took away the detainees' watches, so they didn't know what time it was. The officers didn't even let them raise their heads, making them to look at the floor.
One of the report's authors, Jeremy Slack from the University of Arizona, says that these facts are rather systematic than exceptions.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security spokesperson Marsha Catron says that the agency "takes seriously the safety and welfare of detainees and those in our custody and our facilities are maintained in accordance with applicable laws and policies."
"Every DHS employee is held to the highest standard of professional and ethical conduct. Accusations of alleged unlawful conduct on or off duty, are investigated thoroughly and if substantiated, appropriate action is taken," she adds.

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