Support for petitioners in case of Family Members of Anastasio Hernández Rojas v. United States, Case No. 14.042

October 24, 2022

Julissa Mantilla Falcón, President of the IACHR
Edgar Stuardo Ralón Orellana, First Vice-President of the IACHR
Margarette May Macaulay, Second Vice-President of the IACHR
Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño, Commissioner of the IACHR
Joel Hernández García, Commissioner of the IACHR
Roberta Clarke, Commissioner of the IACHR
Carlos Bernal Pulido, Commissioner of the IACHR
Tania Reneaum Panszi, Executive Secretary of the IACHR
Organization of American States
1889 F St NW
Washington, D.C., 20006

Re: Support for petitioners in case of Family Members of Anastasio Hernández
Rojas v. United States, Case No. 14.042

Dear Honorable IACHR Commissioners and Executive Secretary Reneaum Panszi:

We, the undersigned organizations, write in support of the family of Anastasio Hernández Rojas in their petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in their claim that the United States has historically and systemically used the power of the state to kill community members, cover it up, and deny families access to justice. Anastasio is one of thousands that have been killed by law enforcement in the United States with near total impunity in large part because the standards for use of force are inadequate and the mechanisms for accountability are weak. This disproportionately affects Black and Brown men, women, and children whose human rights have been violated and whose lives continue to be at risk because of the unchecked power of the state.

We stand with the family of Anastasio, who was brutally killed in 2010 in San Ysidro, California by agents of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Since Anastasio’s death, nearly 250 people have died in encounters with CBP, the majority of whom are Black and Brown people from countries including Angola, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and the United States. These deaths are some of the thousands of deaths that have occurred year over year since 1924, when the United States established its first border enforcement agency, the U.S. Border Patrol, which is now part of CBP. In the near century that the United States has had border agents, few border agents have been charged and zero agents — none — have been convicted for any of the thousands of lives taken using the power of the state.

As the Anastasio case points out, the abuse and impunity in the United States are endemic to a justice system designed to protect law enforcement, not the communities they are sworn to serve.

The Petitioner’s Additional Observations detail that on May 28, 2010, more than a dozen border agents surrounded Anastasio while he was handcuffed, hog-tied, and in the prone position on the ground. They beat him, shot him repeatedly with a Taser, and then put him into a positional asphyxiation position with an agent leaning on top of him until he stopped breathing. These acts constitute torture. The impunity began with border agents dispersing witnesses, erasing cell phone videos, intervening in the autopsy and investigative interviews, destroying government video, altering government documents, mishandling evidence, and acting at every turn to obstruct justice.

This obstruction was not an aberration, but rather, the norm for CBP, which has illegally operated cover-up units called ‘Critical Incident Teams’ for decades outside of public view. The Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) revealed the existence of these teams to the public in a letter to the U.S. Congress in October 2021, which prompted several government investigations, currently ongoing, and the elimination of the teams. But the revelations about the cover-up units have not resulted in any accountability. The U.S. government seems poised to absolve border agents of past misconduct and to permit their involvement in future investigations of use of force.

According to the Washington Post, police killings claim the lives of over a thousand people every year in the United States (not including deaths at the hands of border agents). Black and Brown community members are killed at much higher rates than anyone else. They include the high-profile killings of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many more. Few officers are ever charged for unjustified killings, and even fewer are convicted because access to justice is fraught with obstacles. The greatest obstacle is how excessive force is defined in the United States. U.S. law condones as “objectively reasonable” force that amounts to torture or excessive use of force under international standards.’ Until and unless the United States’s use-of-force standard changes, the killings by border agents, police, and other law enforcement will continue, and justice will be denied in all but the rare few cases.

The time is now for the IACHR to weigh in.

This is a moment of national reckoning for law enforcement in the United States. Talk of reform permeates the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, city halls, and public square, but meaningful accountability mechanisms have yet to appear. That must change. The unabated violence by law enforcement undermines our safety, our humanity, and civilian control over state power. An examination now by the IACHR of the use-of-force standards and accountability mechanisms at play in the Anastasio case and in effect throughout the United States is timely and could help move us forward to protect human rights.

In border communities, use of force by border agents is on the rise. According to CBP’s own data comparing 2019 and 2022, use-of-force incidents have risen from 592 to 876, even while assaults on officers, which agents claim justifies the force they use, have fallen from 484 to 462. The rise in violence comes at a time when agents at CBP are critical of attempts at reforms, they operate secret social media groups where they make xenophobic, sexist, and racist jokes with few consequences, and the former head of Border Patrol openly threatens rape in response to media reports about his role in the abuse and impunity at the heart of the Anastasio case.

In the days after Anastasio’s life was taken, while the family was still mourning and the community was reeling, the Border Patrol union openly tweeted, “Lesson learned: Don’t fight with Border Patrol,” and “We don’t fight fair, we fight to win.” This is the attitude of an agency then and now, an attitude that reverberates throughout CBP. If this is the unchecked behavior of the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, what can we expect from other agencies? What can we expect from law enforcement in other countries?

Now is the moment to hold CBP and other law enforcement in the United States accountable, and point to the reforms that will open a new chapter, one where human rights and life are paramount and protected at all times for all people. We thank the IACHR Commissioners and Executive Secretary for your consideration of our letter in your deliberations.

Respectfully,

Abolish Stanford
ACCESS REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
Activist San Diego
Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus
African Diaspora for Good Governance
AILA San Diego Chapter
Al Otro Lado
Alianza Americas
Alliance San Diego
American Civil Liberties Union
American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931
American Friends Service Committee
Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative
ANSPAC
Arizona Justice For Our Neighbors
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
Asian Solidarity Collective
Association of Raza Educators
Austin Region Justice for Our Neighbors
Border Kindness
Border Workers United
Bridges Faith Initiative
Buen Vecino
California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice
California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC)
Casa DEL MIGRANTE
Casa Familiar
Causa Justa :: Just Cause
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
Center for Justice & Reconciliation at PLNU
Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative
Children’s Defense Fund-California
Chula Vista Partners in Courage
Coalición de Derechos Humanos
Comité Cívico del Valle
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
Communities United for Status & Protection (CUSP)
Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo)
Community Asylum Seekers Project
Comunidad de Apoyo San Diego
Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim
Contra Costa Immigrant Rights Alliance
Council of Equity Advocacy San Diego
CSA San Diego County
Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción, A.C.
Doctors for Camp Closure
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Washington DC
​​Drug Policy Alliance
Espacio Migrante
Franciscan Action Network
Freedom for Immigrants (FFI)
Grassroots Leadership
Haitian Bridge Alliance
Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice
Human Rights First
Immigrant Defenders Law Center
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Immigration Equality
Indivisible San Diego Persist
Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice
Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración (IMUMI)
Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio
International Mayan League
International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)
Jakara Movement
​​Japanese American Citizens League
Jewish Family Service of San Diego
Justice For Our Neighbors North Central Texas
Justice In Motion
Kino Border Initiative
La Alianza Law Students of Latin American Descent
La Raza Law Journal
Latin America Working Group (LAWG)
LBIRC
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
LifeLong Medical Care
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Mosques Against Trafficking
MPower Change Action Fund
National Immigrant Justice Center
National Immigration Law Center
National Immigration Project (NIPNLG)
National Justice For Our Neighbors
National Latino Research Center
National Lawyers’ Guild
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
New Mexico Dream Team
North County Equity and Justice Coalition
North County LGBTQ Resource Center
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates
Orange County Equality Coalition
Orange County Justice Fund
Orange County Rapid Response Network
Our Roots Multi-Cultural Center
Palestinian Youth Movement Vancouver
Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans
Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Carlsbad CA
Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California
Pink Crescent
Presente.org
Project On Government Oversight
Promotores Comunitarios del Desierto, Eastern Coachella Valley
Proyecto Azteca
Refugee Health Alliance
Rise Up San Diego
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network
San Diego Chicano/Latino Concilio on Higher Education
San Diego City College Department of Chicano/a/x Studies
San Diego Concilio
San Diego County Coalition on Education
San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium
SB County Immigrant Legal Defense Center
Secure Justice
SEIU United Service Workers West
Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN)
South Bay Forum
​​South Bay People Power
Southern Border Communities Coalition
Southern California Immigration Project
Stanford Code the Change
Stanford Decarceration Collective
Stanford Students for Affordability
Stanford Students for Workers’ Rights
Street Level Health Project
Students for Environmental & Racial Justice
Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative
Texas Civil Rights Project
The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
The Children’s Partnership
The Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective
Trucha
Tsuru for Solidarity
Unified US Deported Veterans
Unión del Barrio
Unitarian Universalist Refugee and Immigrant Services and Education
UNITE HERE Local 30
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135
United We Dream
Universidad Popular
University of San Diego’s Mulvaney Center
Voces Unidas (RGV)
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center
Witness at the Border
Women’s Refugee Commission