Posted on 12/21/2013 12:48:39 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
EL PASO, Texas — She was forced to strip, cavity searched for hours, then billed, she says. She’s suing.
A New Mexico woman’s lawsuit claims federal border patrol officers forced her to undergo a brutal six-hour, full-body cavity search, before she was brought to a hospital for further examination, and charged $5,000 for the forced procedures.
The Lovington, N.M., woman said border patrol agents subjected her to anal and vaginal probes that made her feel like an “animal,” before being taken to EL Paso County Hospital. There, she was forced to have an observed bowel movement, was X-rayed, had a speculum exam, vaginal exam and had a CT scan.
The suit claims the hospital “violated her” and then gave her the $5,000 bill.
The lawsuit names as defendants the El Paso County Hospital District’s Board of Managers, University Medical Center, Drs. Michael Parsa and Christopher Cabanillas, two unknown supervising U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and two other CBP officers only identified by their last names of Portillo and Herrera. The doctors and the agents could not be reached for comment.
The 54-year-old woman, who is not identified in the suit, is asking for an unspecified amount of money and to end the policy that gives federal agents and officers the authority to stick their fingers and objects into people’s cavities when they search for drugs.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union in federal court in El Paso on behalf of the woman who was stopped as she crossed at the Bridge of the Americas a year ago. Despite the six-hour search at the port and then later at University Medical Center, no drugs were found.
The woman is identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, the woman was first frisked and strip-searched at the port of entry, where officers stuck their fingers inside her rectum and vagina. When that search came up negative, she was taken to University Medical Center.
“These extreme and illegal searches deeply traumatized our client,” ACLU of New Mexico Legal Director Laura Schauer Ives said in the news release. “The fact that our government treated an innocent 54-year-old woman with such brutality and inhumanity should outrage all Americans. We must ensure that government agents never put another person through a nightmare like this ever again.”
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a prepared statement that the agency could not talk about a specific lawsuit.
“As a practice [Customers and Border Protection] does not comment on pending litigation,” the statement said. “CBP stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission, and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees and officers perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe. We do not tolerate corruption or abuse within our ranks, and we fully cooperate with any criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct by any of our personnel, on or off-duty.”
University Medical Center also declined to get into specifics of the lawsuit.
“Hospital policy is to obtain consent from all patients who receive medical services at [University Medical Center],” spokeswoman Margaret Altoff-Olivas said in a statement. “Because this case involves litigation, [University Medical Center] will not be commenting further.”
The search took place at about 2 p.m. Dec. 12, 2012, when the woman was coming back from seeing a family friend, whom she calls “uncle” and tries to visit once a month.
As her passport was swiped, a CBP officer told her she was “randomly” picked for a secondary inspection, where Portillo and Herrera frisked her through her clothing.
“One of the agents ran her finger over Ms. Doe’s genital area during the frisk,” the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to squat as one of the officers “inserted her finger in the crevice of Ms. Doe’s buttocks.” The frisk did not show any evidence of contraband or drugs, the lawsuit said.
Then the woman was told to stand in a line with other people as a drug-sniffing dog walked by.
The officer with the dog “hit the ground by her feet, but did not hit the ground by any of the others in the line,” the lawsuit said. “The dog responded by lunging onto Ms. Doe and landing its front paws on her torso.”
Ives said she does not believe this was a proper signal to indicate a drugs were present, but officers used it to continue the search.
The woman was taken to another room and asked to take off her pants and crouch as her anus and vagina were examined with a flashlight, the lawsuit said.
The woman, now crying, was taken to University Medical Center after the strip search did not find anything.
“During the car ride to the Medical Center, Ms. Doe asked if the agents had a warrant,” the lawsuit said. “One of them responded that they did not need a warrant.”
While handcuffed to an examination table, the woman was searched again by both officers and Cabanillas and Parsa. She was given a laxative and had a bowel movement in a portable toilet in front of both officers, the lawsuit said
Then the woman’s abdomen was X-rayed, but there were no signs of drugs or any other contraband in the woman’s body. A speculum was used to probe her vagina and Parsa’s fingers were used to inspect both her vagina and rectum while the door to the examining room was left open, the lawsuit said.
At this point the lawsuit claims, “Ms. Doe felt that she was being treated less than human, like an animal.”
The last test was a CT scan of the woman’s abdomen and pelvis, which resulted in no evidence of illegal activity being found.
The lawsuit said after the CT scan one of the officers told the woman she could sign the medical consent form and [Customers and Border Protection] would pay for the exams, but if she did not sign, she would be charged. The woman refused to sign and eventually she was charged more than $5,000 for the examinations.
According to the lawsuit, she repeatedly refused to consent to any of the searches.
University Medical Center’s search of patients policy states, “Associates, members of Medical Staff, Residents or Allied Health Professionals may search a patient only when necessary to comply with a search warrant.” Under the subhead procedure, the policy states, “…unless a patient consents, an invasion of the patient’s body to obtain evidence requires a search warrant.”
A warrant was not obtained, the lawsuit said.
“However, in practice, the medical center staff and [Customs and Border Protection] agents routinely conduct invasive cavity searches without warrant, consent or sufficient suspicion to justify the searches,” the lawsuit said. “When Ms. Doe expressed dismay about the unreasonable searches she suffered, a medical center employee responded that these procedures were routinely followed when an individual is brought in by CBP agents.”
In a phone interview, Ives said searches like the one the 54-year-old woman went through are illegal and becoming common among law enforcement.
“When the less intrusive search didn’t find any evidence of drugs, more intrusive searches should have not been used,” Ives said. “Any one of those searches should have eliminated any suspicion of drugs. A second search should make it clear and at most a third search should have been the last.”
She said: “The fact that this happened to a 54-year-old woman should outrage anyone. She did ask to talk to an attorney and she did ask for a warrant. I don’t know what guarantees there are to our rights other than a lawsuit like this one that hold the government agencies responsible.”
So you’re ok with cavity searches and forced observed bowel movements as a means to verify a passport?
Being in El Paso while living in NM is like every other state border town. Wise up and this time it was not local authorities, it was the Federal Government. So where would one stay away from if residing in the United States?
How about trying to study a little bit of Geography before piping off?
And despite all your jack booted thugery I can still buy any illegal drug in any town in this country.
Just another sexual assault by the US gov’t on its
citizens.
Just another assault ignored by Congress as the borders
remain OPEN to al Qaeda
(now weaponized by Obama and Holder).
A diligent FReeper needs to track this story and post followups until the thing is completed. As in all initial reports, facts are missing and no doubt some aspects are inaccurate.
It will be interesting to see what comes to light after more investigation.
I have to wonder though, what kind of contraband that could be inserted into a living person’s body would require more than Xray (at the most) to find.
If you can afford the $400.00 per month, if you are able to get coverage, and the $12,000.00 per year deductible.
BOY WHAT A GREAT DEAL PROVIDE BY YOUR DUMB-O- CRAT ELECTED MORONS AND THEIR PUPPET MASTER MAC DADDY THE GREAT.
A dog will alert to a ham sandwich... or a woman with a period... or any subtle signal from the handler. And she was a citizen, no less.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3212603.shtml#.UrWvK32IbMI
Is that the same hospital as this woman’s?
Great post
Everyone needs to shut up, we are now living in a dictatorship, so get over it, no one cried when they put the body scanners in the airports, fondled young children, murdered people for driving too fast or running barracades, so just get used to it, it is ONLY going to get worse. /end sarcasm
Were you and I to do this to any woman the charges would be kidnapping, false imprisonment and rape.
When the federal government does it it’s called following policy.
......and at least reasonably attractive
“A New Mexico woman’s lawsuit claims federal border patrol officers forced her. . . “
Read “border patrol officers” and stopped reading right there.
First, there are no “border patrol officers.” There are Border Patrol Agents.
Second, CBP officers are not Border Patrol Agents. Border Patrol Agents work BETWEEN the POEs, CBP officers work the POEs. She dealt with CBP officers.
She should know the difference: http://www.honorfirst.com/media.htm
Look for the picture to tell the difference.
She can’t even get it straight who she is whining about.
Well I guess we could argue about minutia instead of addressing the problem.
So you're just an asshole troll!?! No surprise there.
So they were border patrol officers.
She can’t even get it straight who she is whining about.
Apparently she does have it straight but she didn't write the article either.
Are you BCW's betting buddy?
Calling Border Patrol Agents “border patrol officers” when they are not, and confusing them with CBP officers is akin to calling a Marine a soldier.
Border Patrol Agents get enough disrespect from the current administration. They don’t deserve sloppy ‘reporting’ and unjust accusations.
I thought you said that they weren’t border patrol agents!?!
“Apparently she does have it straight but she didn’t write the article either”
She did not get it straight: “The Lovington, N.M., woman said border patrol agents subjected her. . .”
They were CBP, not BP.
The ‘reporters’ feel that everyone that works the borders are the same. . .when they are totally different and with different AORs.
Insisting reporters know the basics about what they are reporting on is a bit much, I know, but they must be called on their sloppy and/or ignorant reporting.
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