SAN DIEGO — After witnessing what it describes as egregious human rights violations, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, an advocacy group for migrants seeking asylum in the United States, has filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

“The complaint essentially says that when someone is under the protection of the Border Patrol, they have to follow a certain set of standards,” Pedro Rios told FOX 5 on Monday.

Those standards indicate people should be fed three times a day and have access to water and a toilet, among other necessities.

According to Rios, who has monitored the buildup of hundreds of migrants seeking asylum along the southern border weeks ahead of the end of Title 42, the migrants’ treatment was inhumane and degrading.

“What we were witnessing here is that Border Patrol, in fact, was tagging them with bracelets, had some of them remove their shoelaces, which meant they were in a pre-processing status. and they were under Border Patrol custody,” Rios said.

And that’s the basis for the complaint: they were asylum seekers that were under the protection of Border Patrol, yet were given very little food, left outdoors with no bathroom facilities.

“Giving someone a granola bar one time per day is absolutely something that should not be tolerated,” Rios said. “They did bring in one single porta potty for 400, 500 people but it was only serviced twice a week, which means that within a number of hours it was unusable.”

In the last 24 hours, the hundreds of migrants who had been camped out here were picked up and are now being processed. Cleanup crews are now removing all the debris left behind giving a look at how deplorable and filthy the conditions are.

Rios hopes it stands as witness for those in a position to make a difference.

“We hope that other elected officials received a complaint so that they understand the gravity of what took place here and that there’s followup and accountability, so that this never happens again,” Rios said.

A representative from DHS told FOX 5 they were aware of the issue but could not provide a statement at this time.