This report describes the findings of a three-week Amnesty International research mission to the U.S.-Mexican border in September 1997, in response to allegations of ill-treatment and brutality by officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in particular the Border Patrol. The report is available online at the Amnesty International website: http://www.amnesty.org/. Search the AI library for the index number: AMR 51/03/98.

 Human rights abuses by INS and its agents enforcing U.S. immigration laws along the U.S.-Mexican border; concerns the arrest and detention of undocumented aliens.

Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, Segunda informe sobre las violaciones a los derechos humanos de los trabajadores migratorios mexicanos en su tránsito hacia la frontera norte, al cruzarla y al internarse en la franja fronteriza sur norteamericana. México: Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 1996. 
A report by Mexico's Human Rights Commission about human rights violations endured by Mexican migrant workers at Mexico's border with the United States. See also Informe sobre violaciones a los derechos humanos de los inmigrantes, frontera sur, about human rights violations at Mexico's border with Guatemala and Belize.

John F. Dulles, Federal immigration law enforcement in the Southwest: civil rights impacts on border communities. Los Angeles:  U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Western Regional Office, [1997].
  Report of the Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas Advisory Committees to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. These reports were  produced in response to allegations, at Congressional Hearings during  the 101^st Congress, 2^nd Session (1990), of violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Steve Helfand, Desensitization to border violence & the Bivens remedy to effectuate systemic change, 12 La Raza Law Journal 87 (2001).
 The author suggests the use of the Bivens action (Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)) to attach personal liability and curtail abuses by Border Patrol agents.

Susanne Jonas and Suzie D. Thomas, eds., Immigration: a civil rights issue for the Americas. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1999.
  Collection of essays, including N. Rodriguez, The Battle for the Border; J. Isbister, Are immigration controls ethical?

Kristina M. Oven, The immigrant first as human: international/human rights principles and Catholic doctrine as new moral guidelines for U.S. immigration policy, 13 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 499 (1999).

  The author argues that three national influences need to be "humanized": societal attitudes toward immigrants, immigration legislation and policy, and the Border Patrol and its treatment of immigrants at the border.

Slipping through the cracks: unaccompanied children detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. NY: Human Rights Watch, 1997.

  Describes detention conditions in Arizona and Los Angeles, based on site visits and interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch researchers in 1996. Uncovered violations of international law, the U.S. Constitution, U.S. statutory provisions, INS regulations and court orders.

Alexander Tsesir, Toward a just immigration policy: putting ethics into immigration law, 45 Wayne Law Review 105 (1999).

  Analyzes legal and moral problems with the 1996 immigration legislation, curtailing immigrants’ rights and reflecting negative attitudes toward immigration.

Jorge A. Vargas, U.S. Border Patrol abuses, undocumented Mexican workers, and international human rights, 2 San Diego  International Law Journal 1 (2001).

  The article traces the history of Mexican migration to the United States, the origin and evolution of the Border Patrol, abuses inflicted upon undocumented persons by the Border Patrol, Operation Gatekeeper, and international human rights issues. 

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Last revised: 10/24/02