One former federal official has already claimed that Customs and Border Protection’s corruption rate has “exceeded that of any other U.S. federal law-enforcement agency,” with widespread reports of bribery, drug muling, and yes, sexual assault. Earlier this year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that two Guatemalan women were sexually assaulted by Border Patrol agents last summer. Now according to a new report, three C.B.P. agents are alleging veteran agents subjected them to “extreme hazing” that included verbal taunts and “sexually abusive behavior” performed on a piece of furniture agents themselves called the “rape table”:
"They take you in a room, and your fellow officers are all watching as officers grab you," said officer Vito Degironimo in an interview with NBC New York. "Once the lights go out, they grab you up like a gang, and they forcibly throw you on the table, and one officer ended up mounting me and pretty much riding me like a horse."
Officer Diana Cifuentes says she was never forced onto this table, but did receive threats and intimidation from at least one fellow officer, with whom she describes having a previous conflict.
"He said, 'You deserve to be put on the rape table,' and that's when he started chasing after me," she said. “[Eventually] I was held down by another officer and one additional officer taped me with green customs tape to the chair."
The officers believe no one else has come forward, since those seemingly in charge of these rituals are “well connected.” After an internal complaint was filed, “The repercussions were that they removed the [rape] table. There was no punishment for the officers involved."
According to Broadly, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said "an investigation of the hazing allegations is ongoing."
"People are too scared to go anywhere because these guys are well connected," Degironimo said. "Our immediate supervisors are best friends with these officers. The repercussions were that they removed the table. There was no punishment for the officers involved."
New Jersey Congressman Donald Payne, Jr., who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security, wanted answers.
“This is thoroughly and absolutely unacceptable behavior and we have to get to the bottom of it,” Payne said.
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is also on the committee, said she was sickened by the description of the “rape table.”
“Anybody who has created or supported or allowed this corrosive behavior to take place needs to face the consequences,” Watson Coleman said, adding that she may call for congressional hearings.
“Is this a culture within the organization? Is it happening in other places?” she said.
Yes, there is a culture of violence, corruption, abuse in Customs and Border Protection, and it is one that must be investigated—and have results—as soon as possible. After all, ”last year, a Department of Homeland Security report found that corrupt border agents are such an urgent problem, they 'pose a national security threat.’” And, with news that Donald Trump wants to ease hiring standards in order to bring onboard thousands of potentially unqualified new agents to ramp up his mass deportation force, one that only stands to worsen if ignored.
"I’m afraid for my life, my safety," Cifuentes told NBC 4 New York. "This is terrorizing. How is it that officers believe they’re free to do whatever they want to do?"