In response to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ignoring our requests for records about their interior enforcement policies and practices in southern Arizona, the ACLU of Arizona filed a lawsuit on April 28, 2014 against the agency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Border Patrol conducts extensive and wide-ranging interior enforcement operations far from the border resulting in cases of civil liberties abuses including unlawful vehicle stops and searches, excessive use of force, racial profiling, destruction of private property and trespassing. The lawsuit seeks agency policies, stop data and complaints, among other things, about checkpoints and roving patrols. The government has started producing some records, which are being reviewed by counsel and some of which were used in a report released in October 2015, “Record of Abuse: Lawlessness and Impunity in Border Patrol's Interior Enforcement Operations". Co- counsel in the case includes Professor Derek Bambauer and Professor Jane Yakowitz Bambauer at the University of Arizona Law School.

Date filed

April 28, 2014

Court

United States District Court for the District of Arizona

Status

Victory!

Case number

1:16-CV-00221