A civil rights group in Austin says an incident involving a U.S. Border Patrol agent who raped three undocumented women near Mission is not unusual.
The case involves three women who were allegedly entering the country illegally when they were stopped by a U.S. Border Patrol agent just west of the town of Mission. The three women were then held against their will and raped -- the agent then attempted to kill them. Being faced with a full investigation, the agent later took his own life.
The Texas Civil Rights Project’s Jim Harrington and says this type of abuse of power has happened before.
“The folks that they deal with -- the border patrol agents -- are coming into the country generally illegally and they don’t have any kind of leverage that residents of the country have and the border patrol agents take advantage of this," Harrington said.
He said the Texas Civil Rights Project will be filling a lawsuit against the agent’s estate.
“Unfortunately in this case he probably doesn’t have much of an estate, so we’d have to see if there’s liability on the part of the government," Harrington said.
Harrington said they’ll also be going after the agent’ superiors.
"The thing is this pattern is not going to be corrected until supervisors within the agency are going to be held accountable for what’s happening on their shift,” he said.
Harrington said this incident falls on the heels of a report put out this month that examines brutality and excessive force used by border patrol agents.
