PHOENIX (AP) — A Phoenix man says U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers physically mistreated him four separate times last year while he was returning from Mexico.
The Arizona Republic reports (http://bit.ly/J3K5JC) that the account by Alberto Garcia, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was detailed in a complaint filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union alleging widespread abuse by the Border Patrol.
According to the complaint, Garcia's son sat alone in a room crying while border agents interrogated Garcia in a cell with his hand and foot shackled to a concrete bench.
The complaint asks the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to investigate cases involving Garcia and 10 other travelers who say they were mistreated at several ports of entry in California, Texas and Arizona.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.