The US Government In the Dock for Impunity
Justice for Anastasio Hernandez Rojas!
The Alliance San Diego, UC Berkeley’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, and Rojas family have put the US government on trial for impunity. And no time too soon, for as I chronicle in my forthcoming book, CROSSING THE LINE (Nov 2023), the culture that characterizes the largest law enforcement agency in the land dates back as far as the Slave Patrols. The Slave Patrols seeded the Texas Rangers seeded the Mounted Inspectors of Chinese Police seeded the Border Patrol, whose foundational white supremacist roots inform the entire Department of Homeland Security.
The landmark case under consideration by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concerns the murder of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas by agents of the US Border Patrol more than 12 years ago for which no person or persons have ever been held accountable.
So the Alliance San Diego, UC Berkeley’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, and Rojas family have moved to put the US government in the dock.
We’re all invited to join Anastasio’s family and legal team — today at 4 pm ET — for this historic hearing.
Watch the hearing live or register to attend by Zoom here. To learn more…
…from CROSSING THE LINE: FINDING AMERICA IN THE BORDERLANDS, I offer this excerpt in memory of all the unseen, unheard Anastasios represented by his experience.
On May 10, 2010, Anastasio left for work unaware that he would be leaving behind a loving wife, five kids, two parents, seven siblings, a community of friends, and a vast network of strangers nationwide who will never understand why any human would be made to suffer such tortures as he endured. He paid the ultimate sacrifice defenseless in a battle brought by 17 armed officers of the US federal government against one man with a potentially broken ankle, who they cuffed, hog-tied, and held captive under a bridge.
As they rained their vicious blows upon him Anastasio’s final words were: Me tratan como un animal (You’re treating me like an animal). He was not wrong.
His family and friends — his children, especially — will never be the same again.
His ordeal began with a booking by the San Diego Police Department, leading to a two-week jail sentence for an alleged shoplifting violation. But on the day of Anastasio’s presumed release, May 24, 2010, he was handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and frog-marched across the line, left to wander the streets of Tijuana at a time when family members of US government and consular employees had been sent north under the State Department status of “authorized departure.” It was that dangerous.
A devoted family man, Anastasio couldn’t bear being separated from the love of his life, Maria Puga, and their five children, all born in San Diego. He had to get home.
On May 28, Anastasio attempted to return to his loved ones by way of the rugged Otay Mountains. By his side was his youngest brother, Pedro. They were spotted by Border Patrol after eight hours of walking and taken to the Chula Vista Patrol Station just north of San Ysidro for processing.
Anastasio was carrying a large jug of water — not unusual among desert border crossers who run the risk of dying from hypothermia. But liquids are not allowed in Border Patrol stations. In the military mindset of the Department of Homeland Security, they may contain flammables or acids that, in a blink, can transform into weapons. So Agent Ducoing ordered Anastasio to “throw the water out.”
Anastasio began to pour the water out in a trashcan, according to Pedro and others, taking Ducoing’s order literally. But Ducoing thought Anastasio was being flippant. He got angry, knocked the jug out of Anastasio’s hand, then shoved Anastasio against a wall, kicking Anastasio’s ankles apart several times.
Anastasio’s right ankle was then held together by a metal screw, put back together following a work-related accident. The blow caused Anastasio to cry out. He was, Pedro said, in apparent pain.
Ducoing responded aggressively, shouting, “do you want to be beaten?”
Anastasio requested medical attention, as per his right per Border Patrol’s own official policy documents.
Ducoing handcuffed Anastasio and took him into an interview room. That’s where Pedro lost sight of him. The next part of the story we know only from eyewitness testimonies of Border Patrol agents. They indicate that Anastasio, still cuffed, was led from the interview room to an outdoor area. That he continued to complain about the ankle pain. That agent Cardenas asked if an Emergency Medical Team had been called. That agent Galvan responded, No. They were waiting for transport to Mexico.
His behavior was so “disruptive” and “unruly,” according to Border Patrol Supervisor Finn, he felt it best to deport Anastasio immediately, rather than wait to remove him with other detainees. He was a “potential safety hazard,” claimed Finn.
When the vehicle arrived, Finn ordered Ducoing, the man responsible for Anastasio’s potentially re-broken ankle, to handle his removal despite Border Patrol protocol: that in the event of an altercation with a detained person, agents must stop any further interaction. Ducoing later admitted that this is to prevent an escalation from altercation to violence, as Supervisor Finn would have known.
Agents Ducoing and Krasielwicz contend the ride to the border was peaceful, calm, that Anastasio was apologetic. At the San Ysidro point of entry, they pulled into an area called Whiskey 2. A place that exists in the shadows under the pedestrian bridge linking Tijuana with San Ysidro. A place surrounded on all sides by chainlink or cement. A place where you’re compelled to think, whoever conceived of such ugliness as this? A place where paradise got paved.
Now our eyewitness testimonies shift to the 13 passersby on the footbridge overhead. They tell us that several officers dragged a handcuffed Anastasio behind an SUV and placed him face down on the ground. That some of the agents kneeled on Anastasio’s neck and lower back, while others kicked him hard, “like a soccer kick,” and punched him, stomped on his body and his head, and took turns smothering him.
Border Patrol agents say Anastasio writhed, squirmed, and tried to kick back. But public testimony refutes that claim. Eyewitnesses state that Anastasio did not in any way attempt to harm the officers. He was not resisting. How could he? It was one man against many. He was on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, his hands behind his back, cuffed at his wrists.
In contrast, officers in various uniforms just kept coming and coming until they numbered 17. At some point during the mob attack, one of the law enforcement officers stripped Anastasio of his pants.
One eyewitness said that he did not see Anastasio move at all. He only heard Anastasio screaming for help whenever he was struck. Ayudenme! (Help me!), he yelled out repeatedly, Ayunden me por favor! (Help me please!), each time he suffered another blow to his ribs, arms, legs, face.
Another eyewitness said the officers eventually pushed Anastasio’s feet up behind his back and zip-tied his ankles to his handcuffed hands. Anastasio was now hog-tied, but that did not stop the kicks and blows.
In the gloaming of the descending night, eyewitnesses say, Agent Vales suddenly arrived on the scene. He screamed, “Stop resisting. Stop resisting,” and went for Anastasio with a taser. The other agents immediately backed away, trained to avoid the coming shockwaves.
Valse’s first tase caused Anastasio’s body to convulse, witnesses say. Anastasio let out an agonizing howl, they recall, a bellow so loud it eclipsed the humming engines and beeping horns of traffic at the always congested San Ysidro port of entry.
Valse followed with three more tasings in rapid succession, the final one applied in “stun drive” directly to Anastasio’s chest for 12 minutes.
Anastasio went limp, soundless, motionless.
He was then held by agents in a “stress position” for 8 minutes.
Customs and Border Protection agents were now swarming the overpass, yelling at the crowd of eyewitnesses to “disperse, move along, be on your way.” They grabbed cell phones in a mad attempt to suppress and destroy any video-tapped evidence of the tortures their fellows had inflicted on Anastasio.
Down below, agents attempted to revive Anastasio. An ambulance arrived some eight to 13 minutes later. Only then was Anastasio rushed to the hospital. There, he was pronounced brain dead but kept breathing on life support machines until his broken heart finally gave out three days later, on May 31, 2010.
One person in the crowd that night, however, did get away with her phone tucked neatly away in a pocket. The scene she captured became critical evidence in a lawsuit against the US government accepted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Without it, I would not have been able to paint the picture of Anastasio’s murder described above. Without it, we would never know Anastasio’s truth, for the US federal agencies charged with keeping us safe and secure instead did everything in their power to sweep Anastasio’s murder under the rug. They issued a false autopsy report, claiming that Anastasio’s heart stopped due to a methamphetamine overdose — not as the consequence of an agency culture of impunity unleashed on one man with a potentially broken ankle, who was cuffed and hogtied and attacked by 17 employees of the US federal government. They disappeared all video footage that surveillance cameras might have captured, impeding an investigation into the actions of those they trained to “kill first and ask questions later.”
As of this writing, no one has been held accountable for the extrajudicial killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas by US federal law enforcement agents. Indeed, no agent in the history of the US Border Patrol or its antecedents — the Mounted Inspectors, Texas Rangers, or Slave Patrols — has ever been convicted of a killing while on duty. From Imperial Beach to the Gulf of Mexico, plus 100 miles in, this is what border securitization looks like.