Rights Group Cites Abuses on Border

Citing what it characterized as a mounting number of abuses along the U.S.-Mexico border, a rights group affiliated with the Quaker Church called on U.S. immigration authorities Tuesday to implement a civilian review procedure for complaints and to reform its policy on use of firearms.

“Our main goal is to reduce the level of abuse of authority in the enforcement of immigration laws,” the organization said in a statement released during a press conference pointedly held in a park behind the sprawling U.S. Border Patrol headquarters in San Ysidro.

The charges were made by the American Friends Service Committee, social action arm of the Quaker Church, which has monitored alleged rights abuses for a number of years in the border region, from California to Texas.

Shortly after the allegations were aired, William Veal, deputy chief Border Patrol agent in San Diego, dismissed the charges as “half-truths and innuendoes,” among other things.

‘Lot of Misinformation’

“I think it’s a lot of misinformation,” Veal said, adding that not one allegation by the group has ever been substantiated.

The Border Patrol, an enforcement arm of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, has 762 agents based in San Diego, the largest such contingent nationwide. In the past month, agents based in San Diego arrested more than 1,200 people every day.

In its report, the Quaker group said it had documented 208 cases of “violation of human and civil rights” in the San Diego area, affecting 310 individuals, during the one-year period from May, 1988, to May, 1989. The alleged abuses ranged from shooting deaths--a total of five, including three by the Border Crime Prevention Unit, a now-disbanded joint Border Patrol and San Diego police anti-crime force--to beatings, high-speed chases resulting in deaths and injuries, seizures of property and denial of legal rights.

Throughout the border region and southern Florida, where the Quaker group also has an office, the organization says it documented a total of 377 immigration-related rights violations during the May 1988-1989 period. The group said “a minimum” of 813 people were victimized, both documented and undocumented.

Agents ‘Have to Be Educated’

“These people (immigration agents) have to be educated so that they learn how to treat people,” said Maria Jimenez, a Houston-based activist who headed the group’s border rights project.

She was accompanied by Roberto Martinez, a longtime San Diego-based immigrant advocate who also works with the Quaker group.

The Quaker activists said that of all the abuse cases investigated, an unspecified number had resulted in official complaints or lawsuits, while, in other cases, the victims declined to file action, usually fearing they would create additional problems for themselves or relatives. They could provide no breakdown.