ACLU Seeks Access to Arrest Records

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government Wednesday for access to public records involving the arrests last summer of about 400 undocumented immigrants throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

In June, a small group of Temecula-based Border Patrol agents set off panic and controversy when it began patrolling and making arrests hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in cities such as Corona and Ontario.

The next month, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to ensure the Border Patrol was acting within the law and not violating constitutional rights.

It requested a detailed account of every person involved and their interactions with the Border Patrol, methods employed during the sweeps, documentation of involvement by local and state law enforcement, and all communication authorizing the use of the patrols.

By law, the agency had 20 days to respond to the request.

In September, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection wrote back, saying it could not process requests “on a timely basis” because of a high volume of requests and resource constraints.

The letter did not state whether or when any records would be released.

“As a result of Customs and Border Protection’s violation of its duties under the Freedom of Information Act , the public’s wide-ranging questions about the ... raids of June 2004 -- including why the raids occurred, whether they were in fact authorized, and whether people’s constitutional rights were violated -- remain unanswered,” ACLU staff attorney Ranjana Natarajan wrote.

Border Patrol officials did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.

When news of the patrols began in June, residents in Latino neighborhoods said they were scared to venture out to local markets and even schools. Activists decried the stops and arrests as racial profiling, but the agents said the deportations were routine business and that the arrests were based on “consensual conversations” between agents and passersby.

In July, the undersecretary of Homeland Security acknowledged the agents had broken department policy by not clearing this type of operation with their Washington headquarters.

But more than six months later, the public knows almost nothing about what transpired last summer, Natarajan said.

The Border Patrol never explained what prompted the arrests or why they were in particularly Latino neighborhoods, she said.

“This was so unusual and there were no explanations given,” Natarajan said. “The public has a right to know why the raids happened, especially because this caused so much concern in the community. We need to get at the truth.”