16-Year-Old's Death After Coerced Meth Ingestion Underscores Violence of Immigration System
ICE's haste to portray Acevedo as a "dangerous" drug trafficker skirts the issue of ICE's own culpability: Neither of the officers was disciplined, and both remain on the force today.
By Natascha Uhlmann, Truthout
March 24, 2017
In November of 2013, US Border patrol agents pulled aside 16-year-old Cruz Marcelino Velázquez Acevedo for questioning around a suspected illicit substance in his possession. He didn’t survive the exchange.
While in federal custody, Acevedo stated that the substance in question was apple juice. The agents, unconvinced, coerced the teen into drinking the liquid. Acevedo succumbed to violent convulsions and died two hours later. A test kit, readily available on the premises, would have confirmed the contents as liquid meth within three minutes.
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US border agent sexually assaulted teen sisters in Texas, ACLU says
US Customs and Border Protection officer allegedly took sisters into ‘closet-like room’, told them to remove their clothes and sexually assaulted them
Sam Levin, The Guardian
March 22, 2017Two 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.
“We had fled Guatemala for fear, and then this happened to us,” the older sister, now 20, said in a phone call with reporters. In tears, she added: “The purpose and reason why we’re sharing our story today is to prevent this from happening to any women and to ask the agents to have sympathy.”
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