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| A pair of border patrol agents were captured on video trying to force a man back to Mexico. A Customs and Border Protection vehicle is pictured at the US-Mexico border fence near downtown El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, April 8, 2018. Photo: Paul Ratje/Getty Images |
By Andrew N. White, International Business Times - Business
A seven-minute video from 2017 showed U.S. Border Patrol agents attempting to illegally deport a mentally ill man to Mexico. The footage was obtained and released by NBC News on Wednesday.
The incident took place on March 27, 2017, near the US-Mexican border in Calexico, California. The agents reportedly tried to push the unidentified man across the border without proper documentation or confirming his identity, which is a breach of international law. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offered up the video after a whistleblower alerted NBC News of the tape’s existence.
Mexican officials then complained to the CBP, which initiated an investigation of the incident. Afterward, the guards received a reprimand, however, they kept their positions.
The footage, released by the news outlet, appeared to show the CBP agents attempting to force the man back to his country.
"What I’m doing is, I’m doing him a favor," one of the agents can be heard saying during the video.
At one point, an off-camera person is heard saying: "Look at that. You don’t even know if he’s Mexican or not."
That’s when one agent replied: "He looks like it.”
After a while, the border agents released the man and reportedly left him in a park on the U.S. side of the wall.
According to NBC News, officials had lost track of his whereabouts for about a month. He was then hospitalized after a woman complained of his "erratic" behavior.
On April 19, 2017, the man once again attempted to enter the U.S. He was captured and taken to Mexico's consulate where officials learned that he was arrested over 16 times for trying to gain entry into the country from access points including Texas, Arizona and California.
Mexican citizens found trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexican border are routinely brought to the country’s consulate before deportation and must be fingerprinted to confirm identity, according to an agreement between the two countries.
A spokesperson labeled the actions captured in the video an "isolated incident."
"In the video, our actions were not consistent with our normal procedures," David Kim, assistant chief patrol agent, told NBC News. "Corrective action was taken to ensure all our agents understand their responsibilities of adhering to established processes, practices, and policies."
Allegations of abuse and the lack of information available during the deportation process at the southern border have been a longstanding issue, according to a 2017 report released by the American Immigrant Council.
Moreover, the reports, which surveyed the treatment of immigrants at the border, found that 43.5 percent of respondents didn’t receive proper advisement, nor were they made aware of their ability to contact the consulate.
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