A border patrol agent has been accused of telling women to expose themselves to him by saying it was a necessary part of the official process.
New York border agent Shane Millan was arrested and formally charged with depriving women of their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York.
Millan allegedly told three women during August of last year to expose their bare chests to him over a web camera during their applications to enter the U.S. A fourth one was ordered to do so with underwear on. The agent was arraigned before a federal judge and released while he awaits trial.
Such misconduct by Border Patrol agents has been on the rise as a push for recruitment has led to lower hiring standards, a recent report detailed. The document illustrated this by describing a reported rape in September 2019 at the Border Patrol Academy located in Artesia, New Mexico.
The victim was Violet, a 25-year-old Latina single parent who had left her daughter at home in California to attend training. According to police, the suspect brought the woman back to her dorm room while she was intoxicated. When she woke up, he was "on top of her, having penetrative sex." They identified the suspect as an instructor and midcareer agent from Texas.
According to dozens of former agents, Border Patrol's highly sexualized workplace leads to pervasive harassment and assault. In fact, the first Latina ever hired as an agent, Ernestine Lopez, said she was raped by an academy classmate in the 1970's. Lopez was fired after speaking out, but she later filed a suit and settled with the agency.
Data obtained from Customs and Border Patrol detailed 186 different allegations of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years. But despite the data coming from a federal agency, she noticed glaring omissions of some very high profile cases in which agents committed heinous crimes, were tried or found guilty and sentenced.
James Tomsheck, a former CBP internal affairs chief, publicly accused the agency of covering up lethal shootings, creating a culture of evasion and deceit, and failing to conduct adequate training or investigative misconduct. Tomsheck said that sexual misconduct was "a very disturbing pattern and practice of abuse that appeared to be part of the Border Patrol culture."
Ronald Hosko, a retired FBI assistant director for the criminal investigative division, told Reveal in 2014 that CBP leaders estimated a corruption rate of 20% or higher among their employees.
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