In addition, hundreds of CBP agents will have to undergo retraining.
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Being thoroughly searched by border control is uncomfortable enough as it is, but being forced to be further investigated after the search is even worse.
Today, the ACLU of Texas and the ACLU of New Mexico announced a record settlement in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) paid a New Mexico woman $475,000 for illegally subjecting her to vaginal and anal searches after she was detained at the Cordova Bridge point of entry in El Paso.
A woman who was subjected to unwarranted body cavity searches after crossing a Texas-Mexico border in 2012 has been awarded almost a half million dollars by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, her lawyers said Thursday.
In 2014 University Medical Center of El Paso, also named in the lawsuit, settled with the woman for $1.1 million for its role in the exams ordered by CBP. Border, Search, Trauma and Rescue agents began working to find them.
Even though the woman will be receiving a decent amount of money for this illegal act, there is no amount of money that can repay the humiliation the woman must have felt. “We must also ensure that that every law enforcement officer and every hospital staff member understands the consequences of so intimately and egregiously violating someone’s rights”. The woman, who was not named, was returning from a visit with a recently deported family friend in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Ms. Doe is deeply traumatized by her experience and continues to suffer emotional and psychological after effects. The CBP then taped the cuffs of her trousers to her body and “forcibly transported” her to the University Medical Center in El Paso, where she was given a laxative.
Despite six hours of invasive procedures, no drugs were found, according to the ACLU.
In the El Paso case, the hospital charged the woman $5,000 for the tests, her attorney said.
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Among the recommendations suggested to hospitals in the region, that no CBP employee “compel, cajole, or otherwise pressure” detainees into having any exams or tests done. The [CBP] Handbook states that, when a person arrives at a medical facility, “medical personnel make all medical decisions”.
