Unsealed Photos Are the First Look Inside Border Patrol's Infamous Detention Cells in Arizona
All 42 photos posted here for the first time
>>> From the American Immigration Council:
"Immigrant rights groups have filed a class-action lawsuit challenging detention conditions in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) detention facilities. The complaint alleges that Tucson Sector Border Patrol holds men, women, and children in freezing, overcrowded, and filthy cells for days at a time in violation of the U.S. Constitution and CBP’s own policies. Detained individuals are stripped of outer layers of clothing and forced to suffer in brutally cold temperatures; deprived of beds, bedding, and sleep; denied adequate food, water, medicine and medical care, and basic sanitation and hygiene items such as soap, sufficient toilet paper, sanitary napkins, diapers, and showers; and held virtually incommunicado in these conditions for days."
Immigrants call these freezing, filthy holding facilities las hieleras ("iceboxes," "coolers," or "refrigerators"). As part of the lawsuit, the groups were allowed into the cells to take photos, which were then sealed under court order. Against the wishes of the government, the photos were unsealed in late June 2016, and The Memory Hole is posting all 42 of them.
Border Patrol took its own photos and videos inside las hieleras. After being ordered by the court to hand them over, the BP destroyed some of the videos, earning sanctions from the court. The remaining videos and photos taken by Border Patrol remain under seal, but the judge is considering releasing them as well. Check back with The Memory Hole 2 for those.
The photos are below. They're also available in a PDF and in fairly high resolution (150 DPI) in this zip file.
Finally, these two PDF files, which had also been under seal, contain over 400 of Border Patrol's inspection forms for the facilities: Inspection forms 1 \ Inspection forms 2
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