A/HRC/7/12/Add.2 page 5 Introduction 1. Pursuant to his mandate the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants visited the United States of America (the United States) from 30 April to 18 May at the invitation of the Government. 2. Inhabiting a large geographic area, the migrant population of the United States is complex. Hence, the Special Rapporteur did not have time to conduct a comprehensive investigation of all the issues related to the various migrant populations residing in the United States. The Special Rapporteur met with a great variety of organizations, State, national and local agencies, officials, and individuals. These included the following: the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations and California Rural Legal Assistance; religious leaders and representatives; people whose homes were raided by the Department of Homeland Security’s agency for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the National Immigration Law Centre; members of the Youth Justice Coalition; Homies Unidos (which led tours of Pico Union, MacArthur Park and Koreatown in Los Angeles); the Florence detention centre in Arizona; officials at the U.S. Border Patrol; Nogales, Arizona; Dr. Bruce Parks, Pima County’s Medical Examiner (who provided statistics and information about migrant deaths due to exposure); the Coalición de Derechos Humanos and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Phoenix area, including the Macehalli Day Labor Center and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project; members of local Native American groups; advocates for migrant domestic workers in Maryland and elsewhere; the Farmworker Association of Florida in Immokalee; (while in Florida he also discussed detention and deportation procedures with the Haitian community); the US Human Rights Network and several of its member organizations; community members and advocates. Furthermore, numerous migrants provided testimonials about conditions directly experienced by themselves or by their migrant family members. 3. During his visit, the Special Rapporteur toured the United States border with Mexico and watched United States immigration officials at work. He met there with officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), spending half a day with Border Patrol officers at the San Diego sector.1 In Los Angeles the Special Rapporteur conducted site visits, listened to presentations and witnessed community testimony on the system of immigration enforcement (including on raids and detention, workers’ rights, deportation procedures, and the criminalization of immigrants). 1 The San Diego sector consists of more than 7,000 square miles and 66 linear miles of international boundary with Mexico. It encompasses many kinds of terrain from coastal beaches and expansive mesas to coastal and inland mountains, rugged canyons and high desert. Directly to the South of San Diego lie the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Tecate, Baja California with a combined population of more than 2 million. Although it is the smallest Border Patrol sector geographically, more than 40 per cent of national apprehensions have taken place there. For decades, this area was the preferred corridor for immigration due to the highly populated neighbourhoods north and south of the border. This region has gained national attention with the inception of an enforcement strategy called Operation Gatekeeper, launched on 1 October 1994.