"(The Border Patrol inspector) accused me of alien smmuggling and threatened to arrest me," Casares said. "He left to question my brother, and returned with his baton raised, again yelling at me, grabbed my arm, threw me against a wall and then into a bank of chairs. I was terrified."After finally being allowed to return home (following "several hours of questioning and the intervention of other agents"), Casares went to her local police to have her injuries photographed and then filed suit against the U.S. government. She was awarded an undisclosed settlement.
The full report, available here in PDF format, includes a chilling notation that indicates that abuse of suspected Mexicans might be frighteningly routine, and often more severe:
...a second case filed one month earlier involving death of a U.S. citizen at same port of entry still pending.
