Several immigrant rights organizations accused Border Patrol agents of holding asylum-seekers at makeshift open-air detention sites where there are no services in San Diego for hours and days.
In a new complaint filed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the groups say Border Patrol agents are violating Customs and Border Protection's federal standards by not providing adequate food, water, shelter, bathrooms, or medical care. Asylum-seekers are held for long periods at sites across the East County desert after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
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"CBP is still only providing — at best — a single bottle of water and one small snack per day," the complaint reads, adding, "Women at the open-air detention sites are forced to go to the restroom in groups for protection and use pieces of cardboard to provide a degree of privacy."
The complaint states volunteers are tending to the medical needs of immigrants and have been supplying necessities because CBP has failed to do so.
The 88-count complaint was filed by Al Otro Lado, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, the American Friends Service Committee, the International Refugee Assistance Project, the National Immigration Law Center, Border Kindness, and the Southern Border Communities Coalition. It’s the second complaint by the organizations this year. The groups filed the first complaint against the border agents in May.
“It is unconscionable that Border Patrol agents force asylum-seeking migrants to wait for hours and days in dangerous conditions,” said Pedro Rios, the director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border program. “In San Diego, one person in a medically vulnerable state has already died at an open-air detention site. Community members and human rights organizations have been left to provide basic care, including food and water, to thousands seeking shelter and asylum in the United States.”
CBP confirmed in October that a migrant who had been staying in a makeshift open-air camp near San Ysidro died from a medical emergency. Since the 29-year-old Guinean woman died at CBP’s makeshift camp, immigration groups have said conditions haven’t improved.
The Jacumba Hot Springs in San Diego is not a CBP detention site but has become a border crossing spot. Immigrant groups say Border Patrol holds immigrants in poor conditions at the makeshift open-air camps and that the conditions have not improved in months. The camps, which are located at the edge of Jacumba Hot Springs, hold hundreds of immigrants, and the population has risen to as many as 1,200, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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San Diego County is struggling to shelter migrant arrivals, exacerbated by federal officials releasing 42,000 migrants between September and November.
The Washington Examiner reached out to CBP and DHS for comment. Neither of the agencies has responded to human rights violations allegations from the two complaints.