Acclaimed Latino Author and Filmmaker Detained and Accused: Racial Profiling on the U.S.-Mexico Border

"We can’t do our job without taking ethnicity into account. We are very dependent on that." —DHS official

Reyna Grande and David Damian Figueroa detained in the back of the Border Patrol vehicle on August 14. (Photo by Reyna Grande).

It was about 10:30 in the morning on August 14 when the silver SUV rumbled down Tres Bellotas Road, about seven miles north of the U.S.-Mexico divide in southern Arizona. Everyone in the vehicle was tired. There were four people…