The Border Patrol was filmed swiping blankets and other provisions intended for immigrants crossing illegally from Mexico into the state of Arizona, a pro-immigrant humanitarian group says.
In a video dated Jan. 8 and uploaded to YouTube Thursday, a person who appears to be a Border Patrol agent walks off with a plastic bag. The Tucson-based group No More Deaths says the bags contained blankets.
Immigrant activists have long placed water, food blankets and other supplies in the unforgiving Arizona desert in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths suffered by border crossers.
"In an effort to prevent the cruel deaths and suffering commonplace in the U.S./Mexico borderlands, No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid organizations provide food, water and emergency medical aid to individuals in distress," NMD said in a press release. "It is shocking to see Border Patrol agents sabotaging these efforts, instead of helping to respond to the humanitarian catastrophe that U.S. border enforcement strategy has itself unleashed."
Southern Arizona has experienced an unusually cold winter this year. A No More Deaths spokeswoman told the Arizona Daily Star that the film was shot near Arivaca, 12 miles north of the border, where the overnight low reached 30 degrees on Jan. 8.
The Border Patrol found 368 people dead in fiscal year 2011.
Watch the video of the Border Patrol above.
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