2012

On May 11 in rural Honduras, a late-night anti-narcotic mission involving American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and U.S.-owned equipment resulted in the death of four people—two of them pregnant women, a fourteen-year-old boy and a 21-year-old man.  One of the leading Honduran human rights organizations, COFADEH, released this detailed report, calling the event “unacceptable and reprehensible.”

With nearly 2 million Cubans in the United States, approximately 400,000 travelled last year to Cuba. Fifty percent of family members who travel to Cuba are U.S. residents, not citizens. U.S. Rep. David Rivera has proposed an amendment to make it illegal for Cuban residents living in the U.S. to travel to Cuba for any reason (i.e. a death in the family, daughter is sick…etc.) and then return to the United States. What will happen if this goes into effect? Well, before that happens, the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights (CACFR) is speaking out; and its executive director, Silvia Wilhelm, said, “We will fight this cruelty proposed by Rivera.” The Latin America Working Group is 100% behind CACFR. See below for CACFR's full press release.

In a surprise move, the Guatemalan government has announced the effective closing of the “Peace Archives,” one of the most active and important institutions created in the wake of the 1996 peace accords to promote peace, truth and reconciliation. According to Guatemalan press accounts, the Secretary of Peace Antonio Arenales Forno stated that by June 29 the government would “cancel [labor] contracts for which I see no justification and end the functions of an office that I find makes no sense.”

Anastasio Hernández Rojas lay face down on the ground, defenseless and screaming for help, on the evening of May 28, 2010 in San Diego, CA. His feet were bound and his hands were cuffed behind his back as Border Patrol agents beat him ruthlessly. Eye-witnesses pleaded for the agents to stop the beating, but they continued. After an agent shot Anastasio with a taser five times, he stopped breathing, and later died. Border Patrol agents have killed seven residents of border communities in the past two years, including a 15-year-old boy. Despite public outcry, protests, and countless meetings with agency leadership, the Border Patrol has taken no known action to ensure the agents involved are held accountable.

Unchecked abuse and brutality by the Border Patrol extends beyond the string of killings and serious injuries that have captured major media attention. Last year, the humanitarian aid organization No More Deaths released a report addressing the 30,000 abuse against migrants by the Border Patrol the group has documented during the past three years. Abuses range from denial of needed food, water and medical attention to physical and psychological mistreatment.  Despite protests and the filing dozens of complaints, justice has yet to be achieved in any of these cases. 

In March, LAWG worked with human rights partners to bring the widespread culture of impunity in the Border Patrol in which abusive behavior goes unpunished and uncorrected to the attention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).   In a hearing before the Commission, representatives from No More Deaths and other advocates testified about the dangerous and abusive U.S. Border Patrol practices, demanding accountability and transparency from the agency.  

As John Carlos Frey, a migrant rights activist and actor, put it in a recently aired PBS documentary, “If we really do believe in law and order, let’s make our own officers accountable to that law and order. Let’s have a little transparency; people have died, people have been killed.” It’s time for the largest law enforcement agency in the United States, Customs and Border Protection, to be held accountable – and take concrete steps to prevent further abuse and brutality.