ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have a difficult, dangerous job.

Charged with stemming a tide they did not create, and over which they are largely powerless, their daily duties include rescuing those they are assigned to apprehend. Their targets are humans often fleeing violence, mistreatment at other hands, and economic hopelessness, fighting heat and thirst, fatigue and fear.

This wave of the desperate has been washing across the deserts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, finding ways across the border, as long as there has been a border — as long as that magic, largely invisible line has offered an end to danger and a promise of opportunity.

The reasons behind the wave mean little to the agents. They just know they are placed by our government into the same searing heat and life-threatening landscape as those they seek.

That context makes the job the agents do incredibly arduous and their frustrations palpable. And yet it would not begin to justify or even rationalize an allegedly persistent pattern of human-rights abuses in the wave’s wake.

A on human-rights violations in border country was co-written by Zoe Martens, a coordinator with the Kino Border Initiative, and Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the Washington Office on Latin America.

As Emily Bregel, the ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV’s border reporter, set forth in a recent article, the report identifies more than 400 incidents logged between January 2020 and last month. The events were drawn from news accounts and from interviews at migrant shelters along the border. They include alleged assaults, denial of medical care, family separations, confiscation of personal documents and dangerous nighttime deportations.

Accounts of the alleged incidents rarely result in thorough investigation, disciplinary action or policy changes, the report goes on to say.

The lack of internal action or accountability within the agency can be frustrating for those reporting violations.

Bregel quoted Chelsea Sachau, managing attorney for the local Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, as saying that documenting abuses with CBP can feel like “yelling into a void.�

For its part, the agency says it “takes all allegations of misconduct seriously, investigates thoroughly, and holds employees accountable when policies are violated.� It adds that it has implemented “significant reforms that make CBP more transparent and accountable,� including deploying body cameras and strengthening “our internal investigative processes.�

Indeed, just as most migrants are not drug smugglers or criminals, most CBP agents are public servants doing dangerous work and treating the people they apprehend humanely. But while the agency’s words are intended to reassure, real reassurance comes only with concrete action.

The agents who commit such misconduct are in the minority, but the report paints a disturbing picture of a subculture of human-rights abuse, and a lack of accountability.

Instead of insisting that solutions are already in place, and there’s nothing to see here, the agency’s acting leadership would do well to use this report for what it is — a clarion call for reform.

Whether migrants are fleeing political persecution, gang violence or a lack of economic opportunity — or all of the above — they risk their lives and everything they have to cross that border. A horrifying number of them die trying. All must be treated with the respect for human rights that true democracy demands.