A federal lawsuit against DocGo and National Guardsmen in New York: Abuse of migrants
A federal lawsuit against DocGo and National Guardsmen in New York has been filed alleging that migrants have been victims of mistreatment and sexual exploitation.
The complaint alleges that asylum seekers were subjected to inhumane conditions and sexual exploitation.
First, the company DocGo is accused of housing the migrants in unsuitable places despite assurances that it was a Response and Assistance Centre (contracted with public funds) with the minimum conditions for migrants.
Then, there is a lawsuit against National Guardsmen for alleged sexual exploitation and inappropriate behaviour in the shelter centres.
Some members of the National Guard and humanitarian workers hired with public funds to care for asylum seekers in New York.
These National Guardsmen in New York face accusations of sexually exploiting migrant women and children, violently assaulting at least one guest in a shelter, and generally leaving new arrivals in decrepit conditions.
The information was revealed by CNN.
Federal Lawsuit Against DocGo and National Guardsmen: Details
The federal lawsuit against DocGo and National Guardsmen, for the most part, is for incidents in New York State that occurred at the Quality Inn at Cheektowaga, near Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
The federal lawsuit against DocGo, which is a New York City contractor that installed an Emergency Humanitarian Response and Relief Center for asylum seekers, says it seeks nearly $10 million and a jury trial.
On the docket in the federal lawsuit against DocGo and National Guardsmen is a case where a National Guard sergeant drove a migrant woman and her children nearly two hours away to a rental property where he asked her to perform sexual favours in exchange for helping her and her family.
So reads the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
The woman “who had travelled through jungles with her children, evaded sex traffickers in Mexico and crossed rivers, suddenly found herself on a snow-covered rural property in the United States (where she was totally isolated) with her children, facing pressure from a member of the New York National Guard for sex,” the complaint alleges.
Other cases of mistreatment
In other cases, a DocGo manager strangled a migrant, a National Guard member groped a teenage girl, and insects in their infested mattresses repeatedly bit the bodies of children, the lawsuit states.
In light of the federal complaint, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, “has made it a priority to take steps to keep everyone in the state safe,” her spokesman Avi Small told CNN on Friday.
“The New York National Guard, as part of the United States Army, has an independent disciplinary process under military law that will be followed to the fullest extent possible to hold violators accountable.”
For its part, DocGo is “committed to ensuring the continued safety and well-being of all those in our care,” its spokesman, Michael Padovano, told CNN in a statement on Friday.
Its CEO at the time promised to be “fully cooperative and fully transparent with our regulatory bodies, including the Attorney General’s Office”.
Two high-ranking officials at the Cheektowaga relief centre – Deven Colon, a sergeant in the New York National Guard, and Rigoberto Nunez, who handled day-to-day affairs there for DocGo – engaged in inappropriate relationships with migrants, whose dynamics became “more open and brazen around Halloween 2023,” according to the federal lawsuit.
More generally, the asylum seekers under DocGo’s care were tricked by its employees into travelling eight hours.
Once at the Cheektowaga relief centre near Buffalo airport, they found “simply a dilapidated Quality Inn hotel, plagued by numerous problems such as filthy conditions, foul odours, damaged drywall, exposed electrical outlets, and inadequate amenities,” the lawsuit states.
