Improving the Customs and Border Protection Complaints Process

During my visit to the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in January, I listened to stories from migrants who had suffered abuse at the hands of gangs in their home communities, authorities and organized crime groups in Mexico, and U.S. Border Patrol agents once they had crossed the border.

One of the relatively recent abuses involved denying people the right to apply for asylum. Instead of listening to stories whereby agents did not make migrants aware of their rights or where they simply said that the migrants did not qualify for asylum, now we heard stories whereby agents were telling people that the US was not longer open to asylum seekers and refugees. There was a new president in town.

A new report from KBI and the Jesuits of Canada and the U.S. lays out some of the complaints filed by migrants about the ways in which they have been mistreated along the US-Mexico border and the lack of response by those officially tasked with investigating such abuses. Here are their recommendations:

• Increase funding to the CBP Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) to double their staff of investigative agents. 
• Audio record interactions between CBP officers and agents and individuals in their custody and equip all CBP officers and agents in the field with body-worn cameras to enhance the available evidence for complaints investigations. 
• Establish a complaint hotline modeled after the ICE ERO Community and Detainee Helpline...
• Increase transparency of complaint and investigation process...
• Integrate DHS databases to ensure that different oversight entities can easily identify individuals filing complaints and the agents or officers on duty at the time of the incident.
• Implement exit interviews.

There are many reforms that we can implement to make the deportation process more humane. While migrants are crossing the border without official authorization, they are human beings. That should not be forgotten.

They are often escaping traumatic conditions in their native countries. They are frequently victimized traveling through Mexico. There's no moral reason why the US should purposely traumatize these individuals once again at the border. Strategically the US wants to traumatize them so that they do not cross again. But that's not an acceptable reason.