'Only the Tip of the Iceberg': Outrage Over Border Abuses Grows Amid Reports of Sexual Assault and Retaliation by CBP Agents

The office of the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it was investigating allegations that border agents sexually assaulted children in at least one migrant detention center and retaliated against children who spoke out about the conditions they’ve been forced to live in.

In internal reports obtained by NBC News on Tuesday, a 15-year-old girl reported that a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent had put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear, and groped her during what was ostensibly a “routine pat-down,” which children are reportedly subjected to in the detention centers that the Trump administration is running.

According to the allegations, the guard laughed with other staff members and spoke to them in English during the assault at a facility in Yuma, Arizona.

Lawmakers and immigrant rights groups expressed anger at the allegations.

The girl’s allegations are far from the first to detail sexual abuse within the U.S. government’s immigrant detention centers. As Common Dreams reported last week, an immigrant was forced by agents at a Texas border station to wear a sign around his neck reading, “Me gustan los hombre,” or, “I like men.”

In February, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) released documents detailing thousands of accusations of sexual assault against minors in U.S. migrant detention centers. Nearly 200 of the cases involved an adult staff member abusing a child.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said last year that the agency is not responsible for abuses that take place in their detention centers, but last week a federal court ruled that a sexual assault survivor’s case against a guard at Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania could move forward. The detention center had argued that the alleged attack was consensual and that alleged sexual abuse should be assessed differently for immigrants in detention facilities than it is for American inmates in prisons or jails. 

NBC‘s report also detailed how children in U.S. custody are frequently afraid to speak up about abuses in the facilities.