A San Diego federal judge has ruled that border officers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry falsely imprisoned a 9-year-old U.S. citizen for 34 hours, violating the Fourth Amendment rights of the girl and her teen brother, who was falsely imprisoned for about 14 hours, as the siblings were trying to cross the border to attend school.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel awarded the girl and her family more than $1.5 million in damages, ruling that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is liable for false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence in connection with the 2019 incident.
Curiel found that CBP officers mistakenly believed, based in part on a coerced false confession from the girl, Julia, that she was actually her Mexican cousin trying to cross the border under an assumed identity.
“The United States’ conduct was extreme and outrageous,” Curiel wrote in his decision, referencing the legal threshold necessary for a finding of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Curiel made the ruling Friday, three months after he presided over a bench trial in San Diego federal court in a civil case brought by the siblings and their mother, Thelma Medina Navarro. The judge awarded Julia, now in her early teens, $1.1 million. He awarded $250,000 to Medina and $175,000 to the brother, Oscar.
“We are grateful to Judge Curiel for his decision,” Medina told the Union-Tribune through the family’s attorney, Joseph McMullen.
“Judge Curiel’s verdict is a powerful statement that CBP officers must follow the rules just like everyone else, especially when it comes to the treatment of children,” McMullen said.
A CBP spokesperson said the agency “takes all complaints seriously and makes a good faith effort to resolve all complaints justly and fairly, including complying fully with orders issued by the federal district courts.”
The incident in question began on March 18, 2019, when Julia and Oscar, who lived with their parents and other siblings in Tijuana, were attempting to make their usual morning border crossing to attend school in San Ysidro, according to a detailed finding of facts by Curiel. On this particular morning, they were crossing in a pedestrian lane with the son and daughter of their godmother.
Their problems began when a CBP officer at the primary checkpoint noticed what she believed to be a facial mole on Julia’s passport photo card that Julia did not have in person. The officer sent Julia and Oscar for a secondary inspection, where a supervisor chose an officer with “a reputation for obtaining confessions” to interview them.
That officer, Willmy Lara, testified that two other officers were present when he interviewed Julia without her brother, the judge wrote. But Curiel found that was not true, writing that no one else was in the room. “The Court finds that Officer Lara violated the CBP policy requiring a witness for interviews of children and otherwise failed to record the interview,” the judge wrote.
What happened in that interview was a central conflict of the case and the trial. McMullen, the family’s lawyer, argued that Lara pressured Julia into falsely confessing that she was her Mexican cousin using Julia’s U.S. passport to try to enter the country illegally. The government contended that Julia and Oscar both claimed, unprompted, that she was actually her cousin.
“The United States does not offer a coherent explanation as to why Julia would falsely confess that she was her cousin,” Curiel wrote. “… There is no question that Officer Lara’s unrecorded and unwitnessed interrogation of Julia produced a false confession. Since the confession was not recorded, witnessed or even recounted in any written detail, it will never be known why a 9-year-old U.S. citizen falsely confessed to being someone she is not. Nonetheless, it is clear that during this one-officer interview, Julia started by stating that she was Julia, but at some point, under the influence and pressure from an intense officer known for getting confessions, she agreed that she was actually (her cousin).”
From that point on, the CBP officers assumed Julia was actually her cousin and suspected that Oscar might be trying to traffic or smuggle her, according to Curiel’s finding of facts. Officers loaded the siblings into a van with a handcuffed man and transported them to the Admissibility Enforcement Unit, where they ultimately ended up in separate group detention cells.
During additional interviews at this unit and in short written statements, the siblings “confessed” that they were cousins, Curiel wrote, noting the siblings believed they would get in trouble if they changed their story again. During this time, Medina and other family members were trying to find out where the children were and provide documentation of their true identities.
The judge ruled that throughout the day, CBP officers “repeatedly failed to take available steps to investigate their suspicions” about Julia’s identity.
While Oscar was released that same night after 14 hours of detention, Julia remained in custody for another 20 hours. The Mexican Consulate got involved on the second day, interviewing Julia twice to determine her true identity. Medina and Oscar, meanwhile, went to the media, providing a live interview with Spanish-language Telemundo.
Under mounting pressure from the media and consulate, Officer Mariza Marin, who was then the watch commander at the port and is now the port’s director, interviewed Julia herself. Curiel wrote that Marin “briefly and kindly spoke with Julia” and quickly determined she was Julia. Around 6 p.m. on March 19, with Telemundo filming, Julia was reunited with her mother and brother.
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“The Court finds that a little over $1 million is an appropriate award for Julia because she was very young, only 9 years old, at the time of the incident and was detained overnight, for a full day and a half without contact with her parents,” Curiel wrote in his ruling. “She manifested fear and distress during the detention and was so traumatized that she experienced nightmares … and insomnia following the incident. She needed counseling for a year and the impact on her has been so enduring that years later when she was put under anesthesia, she referenced the incident. The Court also finds that her demeanor during her testimony in trial manifested substantial distress.”
The judge ruled that Medina and Oscar were entitled to their lower “but still notable” damage awards because of the stress and trauma they also experienced.
“What I find most troubling about this case is that CBP’s top brass took no steps to interview any officers, preserve any video surveillance, or otherwise try to find out the truth, even after the American Friends Service Committee almost immediately lodged a complaint that two U.S. citizen children with valid U.S. passports were held in custody for 14 and 34 hours and coerced into giving false confessions,” McMullen, the family’s attorney, told the Union-Tribune.
In Curiel’s finding of facts, he wrote that CBP never interviewed any of the involved officers and never provided Medina with an explanation of what happened. The judge found that CBP “continues to maintain that their officers did nothing wrong” and has continued to allege, even during trial, that Julia is not the person in the passport photo.