The 52-year-old woman committed suicide at Yuma’s border patrol station on Saturday after being detained by a California agent, US Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Wednesday.

Jayapal criticised the agency with a sharp criticism, showing that “early reports” showed that Border Patrol agents had not performed welfare checks prior to the woman’s death, and she said that surveillance footage was making noose and hanging herself, but that the medical response was delayed two hours.

US Customs and Border Protection failed to comply with internal policies regarding publicly acknowledging the death of someone in custody, and provided a statement only after the Tucson Sentinel made a direct inquiry on Thursday.

Jayapal, a Democrat from Seattle, said the woman was taken into custody in California after officials said she had overstayed her visa.

The unnamed woman decided by the Sentinel, who was apparently in custody last Wednesday after a traffic stop near Needles, California, was moved to Arizona, where she was detained until her death over the weekend, Jayapal said.

“When Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents detain a person, they are responsible for their well-being, complete suspension,” said Jayapal, a ranking member of the House immigration integrity, security and enforcement subcommittee. “The detainee died of suicide, and the initial report showed specific CBP procedures to ensure that the safety and welfare of individuals in custody are not implemented,” she said. statement He was released by her council office.

“There is no excuse for why the agent cannot verify whether some of the necessary welfare checks have occurred or why some of the documented welfare checks have been incorrectly reported.”

“Survey footage showed the woman creating a rope and tying it around her neck, but no medical response occurred for nearly two hours,” Jayapal said.

Jayapal added that, according to the “Information Provided by CBP” log, “we note that multiple welfare checks have been carried out,” but the CBP OPR could not confirm whether those checks actually occurred.

Border Patrol processing coordinators are not law enforcement, but are trained to “bring a humanitarian approach to caring for people in detention.” When the agency was created in 2014, when it detained thousands of children, its position was expanded during the Biden administration. This created a corps of around 1,200 coordinators, which wanted to help agents take care of the people and send Border Patrol agents back to the scene.

Customs and border guards confirmed the woman’s death in a statement to the Tucson Sentinel.

On Saturday, March 29, a 52-year-old woman “is not responding with cells” at the Yuma Border Patrol station, a CBP spokesman said. “Border Patrol personnel provided medical assistance,” he wrote. “Emergency medical services were called to the station and transported the woman to a local hospital, where she was declared deceased.”

“In line with CBP protocols, the Expert Accountability Office is conducting an investigation into the case,” he said, adding that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspectors has also been added.

“Additional information will be available in accordance with CBP’s policy,” he said.

It remains unclear why the woman was detained at the main station in Yumasector.

The Yuma Sector spans the Colorado River and includes parts of Southern California and Yuma County, Arizona. The sector has three stations, including Bythe, Yuma and Wellton Stations, which covers approximately 126 miles of the US-Mexico border.

One day before the woman died, Yumasector Border Patrol announcement They arrested two people from China and seized more than $220,000 in cash on an interstate near Needles, California during a vehicle stop on Wednesday, March 26th.

Agents at Blythe station in Yumasector stopped the minivan and out of the four Chinese citizens in the car, two were illegally present in the US, officials said.

They also discovered cash “hidden in the aluminum foil of two duffel bags.” Agents arrested two men, a 38-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman, accusing them of unacceptable under federal law. They added that under federal laws governing the confiscation of civil assets, cash was considered to be revenue from illegal activities and was seized for laundry.

“I’m incredibly worried.”

Jayapal said the woman was detained after the agent was determined to have “deemed to have overstayed B1/B2 visitor visas.”

Jayapal also criticized the BP agent’s actions at the station, saying that the OPR investigator “must provide answers on why the welfare check was not misrecorded and why this woman was able to die by suicide without the intervention of security guards.”

She said two people died last year at the Northwest Immigration Processing Center, a facility managed by the US immigration and customs enforcement agency.

“I’m very concerned about the conditions of these facilities,” she said. Both CBP and Ice are under the Department of Homeland Security and are now headed by Secretary Christa Noem.

“Another preventable death will only raise that concern,” Jayapal said. “The report consistently shows that the United States is far below its obligation to treat all people detained with dignity and equity.”

The conditions of the Border Patrol have faced widespread criticism for over a decade. In one case, the focus is on the nearby Tucson sector, which runs from Yuma County to the New Mexico border. A federal judge wrote in 2020 that the conditions were “punitive and unconstitutional.”

CBP missed the deadline for self-sets to announce deaths in audit

The announcement from Jayapal came a few days after the CBP voluntarily placed deadline.

In 2018, after the death of a 7-year-old girl in New Mexico, CBP issued new guidelines. As part of the new policy, the CBP said immediately after the death of the person in custody, officials will inform lawmakers about the 24-hour incident and issue a statement to the press an hour later.

This process is supposed to warn more than half a dozen offices within CBP, including CBP’s commissioners and the Office of Professional Responsibility. The alerts also include the office of the Inspector General and the relevant consulate offices through the Department of State.

As one of the top MPs on related House committees, Jayapal will be one of the informed ones. However, CBP has not yet issued an official statement about the death and is only responding to Sentinel inquiries.

Until December 2018, CBP had no formal policy to announce the death of a step-in-law, but that changed following the Washington Post revelation that a seven-year-old girl died while in Border Patrol custody.

That year, Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin and her father, Nery Gilberto Caal, 29, joined the US with 161 others near the frontal operating base boundary before becoming border patrol.

“To ensure and maintain public trust, the CBP’s intention is to become accessible and transparent by providing appropriate information to Congress and the public regarding deaths in custody,” the agency said.

Border intersection

Since October, Yumasector agents have detained 6,605 people, down 76% from the same period last year. CBP officials celebrated the decline, with BP agents detaining 7,180 people nationwide in March and arresting southwest borders every day down to about 230 per day.