ACLU: Border Agents Forced Woman To Urinate In Drug Search, Added To Watch List

June 28, 2016

The American Civil Liberties Union has released a series of reports alleging violations by U.S. Homeland Security Department agents in Southern Arizona. One of the complaints comes from a Blythe woman who said she found herself on a government watch list even though she has no criminal record.

In 2015, the ACLU said the woman, Gabriela Donato, was forced to undergo an X-ray examination and urinate into a bedpan in plain view of two agents after port inspectors accused her of smuggling drugs through the San Luis Port of Entry. The woman said she was held in a cell then a hospital before she was released 12 hours later.

According to the ACLU's report, Donato was not given any food or water— "When she requested it, officials told her that if she gave them 'what she had,' they would give her food and water." The agents threatened to repeat the entire process, the report alleges.


"Today we filed a complaint on her behalf with DHS and ICE oversight officials and with the Department of Justice demanding an investigation of a practice that has occurred too many times," said ACLU attorney James Lyall.


The ACLU contends that a year after the incident, the Blythe woman saw her own photo posted at the Border Patrol’s checkpoint near Quartzite warning that Donato had a criminal history of possessing narcotics and had developed a suspicious pattern of crossing the Mexico border.

"This is someone who’s never been convicted or prosecuted for any crime, whose biggest offense appears to be that she goes to Mexico to visit family," Lyall said.

Other complaints filed Tuesday included a Tucson woman who said agents seized her vehicle and held her overnight.

Also included in the report is the case of Terry Bressi, a Tucson man who runs the website checkpointusa.org where he uploads video recordings of his encounters with agents at U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints.

 

Bressi told the ACLU that last March, he was ordered to a secondary inspection by a Border Patrol agent at the Arizona Highway 86 checkpoint but that a tire spike strip was placed in front of his vehicle, preventing him from moving. Bressi said he was detained more than 15 minutes and accused of polluting when he gave an agent a copy of an ACLU report on unlawful practices and the agent dropped it on the ground. He was then detained by Pima County Sheriff's Department deputies.

 

Bressi complained that a sheriff's deputy told him he was being detained for "criminal littering." The deputy, he said, read him his Miranda rights but then he was released 25 minutes later.

Earlier this month, a Rio Rico woman filed a lawsuit alleging that Customs and Border Protection officers forced her to submit to a body cavity search. The woman's civil case was not included in the ACLU's report, Tuesday.


A CBP official declined to comment on the case saying the ACLU had requested an investigation.