San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC) calls for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office to independently investigate Border Patrol
Media Advisory: November 4, 2021
WHAT: San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC) calls for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office to independently investigate and pursue charges against Border Patrol agents, supervisors and chiefs who obstructed justice in the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) homicide investigation of the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas.
WHERE: Hall of Justice (front steps), 330 W Broadway, San Diego, CA 92101
WHEN: TODAY, November 4, 2021 at 11:00a PDT
CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
- Dulce Garcia, SDIRC Chair
- Michelle Celleri, Alliance San Diego Human Rights Counsel
- Maria Puga, wife of Anastasio Hernández Rojas
- Pedro Rios, director of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
and SDIRC member - Geneviéve Jones-Wright, Executive Director of Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance
- Lilian Serrano, SBCC co-Chair and SDIRC member
The press conference will be livestreamed on the SDIRC Facebook page starting at 11:00a PDT <https://www.facebook.com/immigrantsandiego>
To schedule on-site or virtual interviews with either speaker, please contact Kendall Martin via e-mail kendall@alliancesd.org or via mobile/text: 619.629.0337
BACKGROUND: In May 2010, Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a longtime resident of San Diego and father of five U.S. citizen children, was brutalized by border agents after asking for medical attention for his ankle that agents had injured while processing him for removal. Although he lived in San Diego for most of his life, Anastasio had no documents to remain in the United States and no pathway to obtain them.
Agents denied him medical attention and then drove him to the San Ysidro Port of Entry to remove him. It is there that they brutalized him in front of eyewitnesses. They “hogtied him, dragged him, beat him with batons, punches and kicks, stood and kneeled on his body against the ground, and tasered him repeatedly for extended lapses of time, even after he had become unresponsive, thus causing his death.”
What happened next is the reason for the press conference. The Border Patrol Critical Incident Investigative Team (CIIT) began investigating their own agents without authority and interfered with the SDPD investigation.
Last week these shadow CIIT teams were exposed for operating without any investigative authority and impeding the SDPD homicide investigation. Border Patrol shadow units and the chiefs who direct them are acting without any authority to investigate agents involved in use-of-force incidents. They interfered in SDPD’s investigation and they are subject to state criminal charges.
The San Diego DA office has a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of local law enforcement investigations and has the authority to investigate and prosecute Border Patrol’s obstruction of justice in this case. SDIRC calls upon San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan to investigate the obstruction of justice that occurred in the Anastasio Hernández-Rojas case.
About the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium
The San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium is a project of Alliance San Diego. Since 2007, community, faith, labor, and legal organizations have come together as the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC). Through SDIRC, these organizations are pursuing four common goals: support comprehensive immigration reform; stop the spread of local policies and practices that target and violate the civil and human rights of immigrants; educate immigrants, and educate the public about the important contributions of immigrants. More at: www.immigrantsandiego.org.
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