To the Editor:

“Braving Heat and Coyotes to Be Raped at the Border” (front page, March 4) rightly shines a spotlight on this underrecognized issue.

As the article details, some sexual violence at the border is committed by private actors, like smugglers, but some is committed by federal actors, like Border Patrol agents. One of the lessons from the #MeToo movement is that accountability starts at the top, and that top management should make clear that sexual violence, harassment and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.

Yet under current law, the United States government bears no direct civil rights accountability for sexual violence committed by its agents, and the Supreme Court in recent years has narrowed the circumstances in which federal agents themselves may be liable.

Both the government and individual agents should be held to account to recognize the ways that sexual violence violates civil rights, both at and away from the border.

Julie Goldscheid
Long Island City, Queens
The writer is a professor at CUNY Law School.

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