Two teenage sisters fleeing violence in Guatemala were sexually assaulted by a US Customs and Border Protection officer in Texas after crossing the Mexican border, according to claims filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The sisters, aged 17 and 19 at the time of the incident in July 2016, were in a field office in Presidio when an agent took them into a “closet-like room” one at a time, told them to remove their clothes and sexually assaulted them, the ACLU reported on Wednesday.
The sisters, who have asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, filed claims with the federal government detailing their experience on the night of 11 July when they got lost on the Presidio, Texas-Ojinaga, Chihuahua border. Out of “desperation”, they approached two CBP officers and asked for help, according to the complaint...
The officers then drove them to a field office where they placed them in a holding cell under the supervision of a third officer who eventually forced each of them into a small room “without [their] consent or authority of law”, the claims said. As the two cried together after the alleged assaults, the officer asked them to “not tell anyone about what happened”, according to the complaint.
“We cried a lot,” Clarita said during the news conference. “The man was very nervous and told us to be quiet … to stop crying.”
The sisters later reported the assault to another officer, who eventually “apologized” to them, according to the claim.
The US Department of Homeland Security’s office of inspector general took over an investigation, and the teenagers provided sworn statements. They were released three days later and were allowed to travel to Fresno, California, where they were meeting their mother. The ACLU said it has no record that any disciplinary action has been taken in this case.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...agent-sexually-assaults-teenage-sisters-texas
The sisters, who have asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, filed claims with the federal government detailing their experience on the night of 11 July when they got lost on the Presidio, Texas-Ojinaga, Chihuahua border. Out of “desperation”, they approached two CBP officers and asked for help, according to the complaint...
The officers then drove them to a field office where they placed them in a holding cell under the supervision of a third officer who eventually forced each of them into a small room “without [their] consent or authority of law”, the claims said. As the two cried together after the alleged assaults, the officer asked them to “not tell anyone about what happened”, according to the complaint.
“We cried a lot,” Clarita said during the news conference. “The man was very nervous and told us to be quiet … to stop crying.”
The sisters later reported the assault to another officer, who eventually “apologized” to them, according to the claim.
The US Department of Homeland Security’s office of inspector general took over an investigation, and the teenagers provided sworn statements. They were released three days later and were allowed to travel to Fresno, California, where they were meeting their mother. The ACLU said it has no record that any disciplinary action has been taken in this case.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...agent-sexually-assaults-teenage-sisters-texas
