Human rights commission blames US for fatal beating, cover-up by border agents

(CN) — Almost 15 years after U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents fatally tased and beat an undocumented migrant residing in San Diego, an international human rights commission found United States immigration law enforcers liable for his death and the subsequent cover-up.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — an autonomous judicial institution within the Organization of American States, which includes the U.S. and 34 other nations in the Americas — called on the United States to reopen a criminal investigation into the killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas and concluded that border agents violated the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

“The [United States] is responsible for the violation of the rights to life, personal integrity, health, justice, and humane treatment during the arrest,” the commission wrote in the 43-page report.

Rojas moved to San Diego from Mexico when he was 15 and started a family in California, working in construction to support his wife and five children. He was arrested for shoplifting in early May 2010 and deported to Mexico. Later that month, after reentering the United States with his brother, police arrested and detained Rojas.

While detained, officers refused to provide Rojas with medical attention for an injury to his ankle, which some justified as being due to other detainees “falsely exaggerating” their injuries to delay the process.

“This commission is concerned that State agents, based on stereotypes or preconceptions, deny access to medical care to migrants deprived of their freedom,” the commission wrote.

While in detention, immigration officers beat and tased Rojas while passersby recorded the incident on their cell phones. Eyewitnesses said Rojas didn’t make any attempt to harm the officers and video footage showed Rojas in the fetal position on the ground while being stomped, kicked and punched repeatedly, according to the commission. An officer also tased Rojas four times, and his body went limp after the last discharge.

He was transferred to a hospital, declared brain dead and died the following day.

The commission found that evidence that up to seven police officers engaged in the beating at the same time proved it was no accidental situation.

“The existence of intentional acts is reinforced if we bear in mind that, as was shown in the context section, a pattern of discrimination against migrants of Latin American origin has been identified in the United States of America, which has taken the form of excessive use of force, excessive levels of violence, and the application of tactics that threaten life and integrity by police officers, such as positional asphyxiation and the use of electric shock devices,” the commission wrote.

Taken as a whole, the violence committed against Rojas constituted torture, the commission determined. The United States also failed to safeguard the right to life through its policies and procedures for law enforcement on the use of force, it said.

While the U.S. argued that it conducted a thorough investigation into Rojas’ death, concluding that Rojas disobeyed orders and assaulted border protection agents, the commission found otherwise.

The U.S. Border Patrol’s Critical Incident Investigation Team led the investigation. Rodney Scott, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection, led the U.S. Border Patrol office in San Diego at the time.

In its determination as to whether the United States violated the right of access to justice, it noted that “some depositions allege that police officers confiscated and destroyed the recordings of witnesses to the assaults against [Rojas].” With the evidence available, the commission still noted that the investigations were conducted under the assumption that Rojas had been the perpetrator.

“Such actions are revictimizing and reflect biases, and preconceptions that influence the progress of the criminal investigation into alleged crimes of significant severity,” the commission wrote.

Investigators also delayed visiting the crime scene until 16 hours after the events occurred, and ultimately didn’t conclude until 2015.

The U.S. argued that the family’s claims should be tossed because they previously entered into a settlement agreement, which it said both provided a remedy and waived any claims. The commission noted that the civil case, which was filed in 2011, had not been close to deciding by the time the International Human Rights Clinic of the University of California and Alliance San Diego filed a petition with the commission on behalf of Rojas and his family in 2016.

“There is no element that attributes the delay to the actions of the plaintiff, and, finally, the state has not provided the procedural actions carried out by the judicial authorities — different from those that have already been developed previously— that could demonstrate diligence by the appropriate authorities,” the commission wrote.

The commission instructed the United States to reopen the criminal investigation, “grant full and exemplary reparation for the violations of rights declared in this report,” provide mental health care services for Rojas’ family, reverse the narrative that Roja was the aggressor rather than the victim and enact mechanisms to ensure another incident like this doesn’t occur again.