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HOUSTON (AP) – Two Guatemalan Guatemalan sisters accused an officer of carrying out an improper strip search within hours of the reservation.
The officer in question denied the allegations, including the sisters' claims that he touched their genitals. He insisted that he had only fingerprinted the sisters before bringing them back to their cell.
Investigating the case returns to the words of the sisters in relation to that of the agent. And as in dozens of similar cases, government investigators lined up on the side of the agent.
The lawyers say that the case – described in a report written by internal investigators – shows the obstacles that detained immigrants face when they make a claim for misconduct, even when they manifest themselves immediately, as did the sisters.
"These women were actually, for lack of a better word, happy that their case was the subject of an investigation," said Christina Mansfield, co-founder of the Freedom for Immigrants Rights Group. . "They are in the extreme minority in this respect."
The sisters, aged 17 and 19, entered the United States without legal authorization in July 2016, several days after leaving their native village in Guatemala. They were stopped by Border Patrol agents shortly after crossing the border.
Associated Press has received a written copy of the investigation report through the Freedom of Information Act. It appears that the investigators determined that the sisters' allegations could not be justified for lack of material evidence.
The station where the sisters were detained did not have cameras in the reservation area. The room where the sisters say they were taken away, later described as a reserve or closet, was not processed for fingerprints because the sisters said that they did not touch anything. And the agent said he was alone with the sisters because of the lack of manpower, the report says.
Immigration advocates claim that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, which has reviewed the case of the sisters, rarely recommends that action be taken against agents. A Freedom for Immigrants study found that between January 2010 and July 2016, the Inspector General had received 84 complaints of forced sexual contact against the US Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol. The Inspector General has only opened seven investigations, none of which would have resulted in charges, according to the study that was conducted examining government records.
The study revealed that the Inspector General had also investigated such a small number of cases for detention centers managed by the US Immigration and Customs Service.
CBP would not deal directly with the case of the sisters or discipline the agent involved. The agency said that she was committed to treating the detainees with "professionalism and courtesy".
Immigration authorities arrest and treat thousands of people each month who cross the US border without authorization. Border Patrol leader Carla Provost said in a recent interview that her agency was taking all charges against one of her 19,000 officers "very, very seriously ". Provost had previously headed CBP's internal affairs division, which was also investigating allegations of wrongdoing by employees and the fact that the agency had taken steps to strengthen itself in recent years.
"They are very rare," she said, generally speaking of complaints of misconduct.
The agents took the sisters to the border patrol post of Presidio and placed them in the same cell. The agents who arrested them went out on another call.
According to the report, a third officer then took the older sister out of the cell. He told the investigators that he had treated and fingerprinted each one of them before bringing them back to their cell.
The older sister told a different story. She said that the officer had taken her to a back room where there was a table filled with snacks and drinks. There, she says, the agent told her to lift her sweater and dress. The woman said that after a small picture fell from her bra, the officer shot her. Then she told him to take off his pants and underwear, then touch his genitals with the outer part of his hand.
The younger sister would accuse the agent of conducting a similar search.
Border Patrol directives prohibit male officers from carrying out a body search of women detainees "except in emergency cases", and only at that time in the presence of another officer to be supervised . According to the guidelines, a search of the vaginal cavity must be performed by a health professional in a medical facility.
When the officer later heard one of the sisters accuse him of misconduct, the report states that he "was angry and told the girl that he did not had not asked him to do it. "
According to the investigators' report, an officer stated that "this is precisely the reason why cameras are needed in the treatment area".
The accused officer would speak to the investigators three times. Last time, an investigator noted that the officer "appeared to be nervous and removed" and that he "had to constantly review a prepared statement" from his initial interview. But a month after the last interview, investigators seized a federal prosecutor, James Miller, who confirmed their finding that there was "a lack of evidence."
Miller declined to comment on why he did not sue. The agent did not return telephone messages from the Associated Press, nor did his lawyer, Raymond Martinez.
The sisters were eventually released and went to live with their mother in California. One of the sisters has since sued the US government. The Court's records show that both parties are now discussing a settlement.
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Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Colleen Long, a writer with the Associated Press in Washington, contributed to this report.
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