The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Tucson branch of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). A lack of food, water, and basic hygiene, is what the American Civil Liberties Union says detainees endure when they’re picked-up by Border Patrol. The ACLU now hopes to settle those allegations in Federal Court. The Border Patrol facility at Golf Links and Swan and seven others in the Tucson area are at the center of the class action lawsuit which was filed Monday. In the lawsuit, there are three plaintiffs; two oh which are still in CBP custody. The document also includes a collection of statements from 75 former detainees who say they’ve spent anywhere from 12 to 48 hours in holding rooms with no beds.
The ACLU claims that the conditions are unconstitutional human rights violations. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Tucson Border Patrol facility puts men, women, and children in freezing, overcrowded, and filthy cells for days at a time in violation of the U.S. Constitution and CBP’s own policies. Detained individuals are stripped of outer layers of clothing and forced to suffer for multiple days in brutally cold temperatures; deprived of beds, bedding, and sleep; denied adequate food, water, medicine and medical care, and basic sanitation and hygiene items such as soap, sufficient toilet paper, sanitary napkins, diapers, and showers.
The Plaintiff’s Immigration Lawyers allege that conditions in all of the Tucson Sector Border Patrol facilities violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act and seek to compel the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol to bring its detention facilities in line with Constitutional standards, including limiting the time a person may be detained in holding cells to a few hours, providing adequate food, water, and medical care, beds and bedding, access to showers and hygiene supplies, and maintaining appropriate capacity limits and temperature controls, among other reforms.
