Border Action Network

IPLP represented the Border Action Network, a non-government organization whose mission is to protect the human rights of people affected by border and immigration policies, in a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The organization sought to stop violent attacks by vigilantes against immigrants along the Arizona/Mexico border area. Virtually all of these victims were from Mexico and other Latin American countries, and many of them were Indigenous. The petition before the IACHR seeks redress for human rights violations caused by the United States' lack of protection and legal remedies for immigrant victims of violence and intimidation by these vigilante groups.

IPLP faculty, along with students, succeeded in advancing the petition before the IACHR, representing the Border Action Network in public hearings and submitting written documentation of the human rights violations. In 2009, the IACHR published a report finding the petition admissible because the immigrant victims had exhausted criminal domestic remedies and lacked access to civil remedies on an equal and nondiscriminatory basis. The case proceeded to the merits stage and IPLP faculty and staff represented the petitioners at a hearing in 2011 to determine whether the United States is responsible for violating the human rights of the immigrant victims. The IPLP Program is awaiting a decision on the merits of the case, including recommendations for remedial measures by the United States.