Marlo Paipa was driving home to Tucson with two friends after visiting the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge when their trip took a twisted turn.
Border Patrol agents pulled them over in Three Points and placed them in handcuffs without explanation, the ACLU of Arizona said in a June 28 letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol.
Paipa was held overnight on May 7 in a frigid cell at a Border Patrol station in Tucson, the letter stated. She was not charged with a crime, but she forfeited her car by signing documents she didn’t understand in the middle of the night.
The next morning, agents dropped off Paipa and her friends at a Circle K gas station. When she tried to recover her car the following week, she found all her belongings in the car had been thrown away and she could only get the car back if she signed a document saying she would not pursue legal action against the Border Patrol.
The ACLU asked the Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate whether Paipa’s ordeal and nine other incidents in Southern Arizona in the last year were civil rights violations.
Most of the 10 complaints involve unlawful search and seizure at checkpoints or through roving patrols, James Lyall, ACLU staff attorney, wrote in the letter to Matthew Klein, assistant commissioner of the Office of Professional Responsibility.
However, “several go much further: they describe local residents swept up and detained for days in deplorable conditions in Border Patrol detention facilities before being released without charge, explanation, or apology,” Lyall wrote.
Lyall asked for an investigation by Klein’s office, rather than local Border Patrol offices, citing CBP’s Integrity Advisory Panel finding that “past oversight efforts have not deterred Border Patrol abuse and corruption due in part to long delays in investigations, among other problems.”
When asked for comment on the ACLU’s letter, a Border Patrol spokesman said it is agency policy not to comment on pending litigation.
