{"id":3824,"date":"2007-11-05T08:50:14","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T16:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/11\/05\/border-patrol-whistleblower-about-to-be-fired\/"},"modified":"2007-11-05T08:50:14","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T16:10:02","slug":"border-patrol-whistleblower-about-to-be-fired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3824","title":{"rendered":"Border Patrol Whistleblower About To Be Fired"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reappropriate.com\/?p=843\">Reappropriate<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Story Quickpoints:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2004, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Ephraim Cruz became a whistleblower against the mistreatment of detainees that he witnessed while working at the Douglas Border Patrol Station. Reported abuse of detainees included overcrowding of cells, denial of food for 20-30 hours to children and pregnant women, and the forcing of a male detainee into a \u201cstress position\u201d until he collapsed in pain and exhaustion.<\/li>\n<li>Though Ephraim wrote memos and letters to his supervisors and political representatives for nearly a year, nothing was done about the mistreatment of undocumented aliens at the Douglas station. Meanwhile, Ephraim faced retaliation from his co-workers and supervisors in U.S. Border Patrol for his whistle-blowing.<\/li>\n<li>In 2006, Ephraim was charged \u2014 and acquitted in federal court \u2014 of transporting an illegal immigrant across the border. Ephraim believes the charges brought against him were thinly-veiled retribution for his whistle-blowing.<\/li>\n<li>Now, U.S. Border Patrol is attempting to dismiss Ephraim based on the same charges that he was acquitted of by a federal court. He has until Friday (November 9, 2007) to either resign from his post or be fired.<\/li>\n<li>\nEphraim doesn\u2019t have the money to hire a civil attorney to help combat this latest move by the U.S. Border Patrol, nor can he find a lawyer willing to take on the case pro bono. Ephraim Cruz needs your help!<\/li>\n<li>If you are (or you know) a civil attorney experienced in a case like this and willing to help Ephraim, please email him at <a href=\"mailto:\/\/ephraimcruz@hotmail.com\">ephraimcruz@hotmail.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you are willing to donate a few dollars to offset Ephraim\u2019s projected legal fees, please contact him at <a href=\"mailto:\/\/ephraimcruz@hotmail.com\">ephraimcruz@hotmail.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you are a blogger, journalist, or a member of a non-profit organization, please forward \/ re-post \/ link this post to everyone you know to help us get Ephraim\u2019s story out!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Click through to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reappropriate.com\/?p=843\">Reappropriate <\/a>to read the full story. Jenn at Reappropriate has really done a lot of good interviewing work, as well as quoting extensively from primary source documents; there&#8217;s a lot more to this story, and Jenn&#8217;s post, than the quickpoints quoted above.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE<\/strong>: For more background on this story, read these three stories from the Tucson Weekly: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tucsonweekly.com\/gbase\/Currents\/Content?oid=75546\">November 2005<\/a> (about the charges being pressed against Cruz), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tucsonweekly.com\/gbase\/Currents\/Content?oid=94247\">March 2007<\/a> (about Cruz&#8217;s acquittal), and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tucsonweekly.com\/gbase\/Currents\/Content?oid=oid%3A100589\">September 2007<\/a> (about the apparent lack of investigation into Cruz&#8217;s allegations of abuse of migrants).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It was March 2004 when U.S. Border Patrol Agent Ephraim Cruz first broke ranks, by reporting the grave mistreatment of immigrant detainees at the agency&#8217;s station in Douglas.<\/p>\n<p>But despite Border Patrol claims to the contrary, an investigation of these allegations may never have occurred. Or if it did, perhaps the results were too embarrassing for public consumption.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, after a dizzying two months and several dozen phone calls, the Tucson Weekly has been unable to learn which government agency actually conducted the probe&#8211;or whether the investigation transpired at all. This failure denotes either outright stonewalling by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security&#8211;parent agent to the Border Patrol&#8211;or a startling level of federal ineptitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Reappropriate: Story Quickpoints: In 2004, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Ephraim Cruz became a whistleblower against the mistreatment of detainees that he witnessed while working at the Douglas Border Patrol Station. Reported abuse of detainees included overcrowding of cells, denial &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3824\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration-migrant-rights-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}