273 Records of Alleged Abusive or Improper Conduct where the accountability status is “Unknown”

October 7, 2022

A Southern California public radio investigation found that CBP and Border Patrol in San Diego are releasing injured migrants from custody before they receive necessary treatment, in order to avoid “skyrocketing medical costs” amid a big increase in border wall-related injuries.

Mexico’s consul in San Diego said that “during the first 12 days of August, eight Mexican nationals died trying to cross the border in an undocumented way.” A January 27, 2023 document from the consulate recorded 23 deaths and dozens of injuries, listed as “wall-related,” of Mexican migrants in the San Diego area. (Original link)

With CBP paying far fewer of injured migrants’ medical bills, California’s state government—which changed its law in 2021 to expand the state’s health-care program to cover undocumented migrants’ medical costs—is now bearing most of the cost. The investigation reports:

In 2019, CBP paid the medical expenses of roughly 75% of the patients their agents brought into UC San Diego. That percentage increased to 80% in 2020 but then dropped to 50% in 2021. So far this year, the CBP payment rate at the hospital is down to 15%, although that percentage could go up as payments are processed.

It adds, citing the hospital’s head of trauma, that “the UC San Diego Medical Center has received so many border fall patients this year that the hospital had to dedicate an entire ward just for them.”

— Solis, Gustavo. “Border Patrol Avoiding Medical Costs by Releasing Injured Migrants, Records Show.” KPBS Public Media, October 7, 2022. <https://www.kpbs.org/news/border-immigration/2022/10/07/border-patrol-avoiding-medical-costs-by-releasing-injured-migrants-records-show>.

— “Mexican Nationals Injured or Dead While Crossing the Border in the San Diego-Tijuana Region during Fiscal Years 2020-2022.” Consulate of Mexico in San Diego, January 2023. <https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/sandiego/index.php/boletines/856-increasing-number-of-mexican-nationals-injured-or-dead-in-their-attempt-to-cross-the-border>.

Sector(s): San Diego, San Diego Field Office

Agency(ies): Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations

Event Type(s): Denial of Medical Care

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

October 3, 2022

A coalition of Arizona-based groups led by ACLU Arizona sent a letter to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, summarized by the Border Chronicle, asking his agency to cease the practice of requiring asylum-seeking migrants to relinquish their personal belongings, which often get discarded.

The letter’s appendix includes numerous examples, from Border Patrol’s Tucson and Yuma sectors, of items taken from migrants. Among them:

  • Turbans confiscated from Sikh asylum seekers, denounced earlier in an August 1 letter from ACLU of Arizona. Through September 2022, the organizations had “documented at least 95 cases in which Arizona Border Patrol agents confiscated and did not replace turbans from members of the Sikh faith.”
  • Prayer rugs that migrants were forced to abandon, “sometimes in dumpsters. One of these individuals had to discard a prayer rug that had been in their family for over a hundred years.”
  • Several cases of rosaries and bibles, including “multi-generational family bibles,” that migrants were forced to deposit in dumpsters.
  • 42 cases of vital medications confiscated and not replaced between November 2021 and September 2022, including “those for HIV, high blood pressure, diabetes (types 1 and 2), and epilepsy. Agents also took migrants’ asthma inhalers and prenatal and hormonal vitamins from women with high-risk pregnancies. Most of the individuals whose medications for high blood pressure and diabetes were confiscated were released to shelter providers with (sometimes extremely) elevated blood pressure and blood sugar levels.”
  • “At least 15 separate instances in which elderly individuals were forced by Border Patrol agents in Arizona to abandon medical assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, walkers, and canes.”
  • Reports, received by a New Mexico shelter provider, that El Paso Border Patrol Sector agents were seizing “critical medications and medical devices, such as epi-pens and inhalers.”
  • In Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, “The National Butterfly Center (located in Mission, Texas) has found photo identification, birth certificates, and bank account information at its facility or on the perimeter, where migrants are often apprehended. The organization has collected at least ten sets of identification documents in the last year alone. Other advocates who operate in the Rio Grande Valley Sector report finding discarded police reports, medical records, passports, immigration papers, and other documents that could be vital to substantiating an asylum claim.”
  • Between January and October 2022, “A New Mexico shelter provider that receives migrants from El Paso Sector Border Patrol reports that Border Patrol has sometimes confiscated cellphones and either not returned them or returned them in damaged condition.”
  • Between May and September 2022, the Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative “encountered at least 29 cases in which migrants’ cell phones were confiscated by Arizona Border Patrol agents.”
  • In March 2022, the AZ-CA Humanitarian Coalition “encountered several families who were forced by Border Patrol agents to discard their children’s toys and stuffed animals with their children in line-of-sight.”

— Several Arizona Non-Governmental Human Rights Groups. “Letter to CBP Regarding Treatment of Migrants’ Personal Belongings,” October 3, 2022. <https://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/2022.10.03_letter_to_cbp_regarding_treatment_of_migrants_personal_belongings.pdf>.

Sector(s): El Paso, Rio Grande Valley, Tucson, Yuma

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Confiscation of Documents, Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

September 23, 2022

Staff at DHS’s troubled Inspector-General’s Office, which oversees DHS’s border law enforcement agencies, sent an anonymous letter to President Biden asking him to remove their boss, embattled Trump appointee Joseph Cuffari. “We need help,” the letter reads. “We can no longer be silent when faced with continuous mismanagement of DHS OIG at its highest levels.”

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), which has revealed concerning examples of weak DHS oversight under Cuffari, shared the letter, which cites “decisions that have demoralized his staff and damaged the organization.” The letter’s authors describer themselves as “concerned DHS OIG employees representing every program office at every grade level.”

In 2016 Cuffari, then an advisor in the Arizona governor’s office, “was so enthusiastic about what he called Donald Trump’s ‘huge win’ in the 2016 presidential election that he applied for a job with the incoming administration within days,” the Washington Post reported in September.

“On the campaign trail in 2020, in reaction to a spate of highly criticized watchdog removals by then-President Donald Trump, Biden made a promise that he would not remove inspectors general,” POGO observed.

— Nick Schwellenbach. “DHS Watchdog Staff Call on Biden to Fire Inspector General Cuffari.” Washington: Project on Government Oversight, September 23, 2022. <https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2022/09/dhs-watchdog-staff-call-on-biden-to-fire-inspector-general-cuffari.>

— Sanchez, Yvonne Wingett, Maria Sacchetti, and Lisa Rein. “How DHS Watchdog under Fire in Jan. 6 Investigation Pushed to Get His Post.” Washington Post, October 2, 2022. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/15/homeland-cuffari/>.

Sector(s): Border-Wide

Agency(ies): DHS

Event Type(s): Evading Oversight

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

September 15, 2022

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a letter to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus voicing concerns about the electronic privacy of travelers who pass through U.S. ports of entry, including land border crossings and airports. Sen. Wyden accused CBP of “pressuring travelers to unlock their electronic devices without adequately informing them of their rights” and “downloading the contents of Americans’ phones into a central database, where this data is saved and searchable for 15 years by thousands of Department of Homeland Security employees, with minimal protections against abuse.”

The Washington Post and Gizmodo reported on the letter, and on CBP’s apparent exception to the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment allowing it to carry out “advanced searches” of travelers’ phones—including those of U.S. citizens—if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is breaking the law or poses a “national security concern.” “It’s not immediately clear what a ‘national security concern’ is, or what differentiates it from reasonable suspicion, an already low evidentiary standard,” Gizmodo reported.

Even without such suspicion, CBP claims the power to access travelers’ electronic devices, looking at “anything that ‘would ordinarily be visible by scrolling through the phone manually,’ including contact lists, calendar entries, messages, photos and videos,” the Washington Post explained citing a 2018 CBP “Privacy Impact Assessment Update.” With the “reasonable suspicion” standard, CBP can copy the entire contents of the phone or device. “That data is then stored in the Automated Targeting System database, which CBP officials can search at any time.”

CBP is collecting further, “advanced” data from “less than 10,000” border-crossers’ devices each year, Sen. Wyden’s letter indicates that agency personnel told his office. The number appears to refer only to the “advanced” searches: CBP’s Enforcement Statistics web page indicates that the agency subjected 45,499 international travelers to “electronic device search” in fiscal year 2022, a 21 percent increase over 2021. In the case of “advanced” searches, CBP retains the copied data for 15 years.

Sources told the Washington Post that about 2,700 or 3,000 CBP personnel have access to this collected data, all without a warrant. CBP personnel are not required to record the purpose of their searches, Sen. Wyden noted, “even though auditable records of this sort are an important safeguard against abuse.”

Sen. Wyden’s letter called on CBP to change its policy, laid out in a January 2018 directive, and halt warrantless searches of U.S. citizens’ phones. The Senator asked the CBP Commissioner for “a written plan,” by October 31, 2022, describing the steps that CBP would take to address his concerns.

CBP officials declined to answer Washington Post questions “about how many Americans’ phone records are in the database, how many searches have been run or how long the practice has gone on, saying it has made no additional statistics available ‘due to law enforcement sensitivities and national security implications.’”

— Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon). “Wyden Letter to CBP on Border Searches of Devices,” September 15, 2022. <https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden%20letter%20to%20CBP%20on%20border%20searches%20of%20devices.pdf>.

— Harwell, Drew. “Customs Officials Have Copied Americans’ Phone Data at Massive Scale.” Washington Post, September 19, 2022. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/15/government-surveillance-database-dhs/>.

— Dell Cameron and Lauren Leffer. “Border Agents Are Taking Data From Americans’ Phones Without Warrants.” Gizmodo, September 15, 2022. <https://gizmodo.com/border-patrol-surveillance-cell-data-no-warrants-1849540504>.

— “Privacy Impact Assessment Update for CBP Border Searches of Electronic Devices.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, January 4, 2018. <https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/PIA-CBP%20-%20Border-Searches-of-Electronic-Devices%20-January-2018%20-%20Compliant.pdf>.

— Screenshot from CBP Enforcement Statistics web page, January 14, 2023 (Washington: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, January 14, 2023) <https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics>.

— “CBP Directive 3340-049A: Border Search of Electronic Devices.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, January 4, 2018. <https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2018-Jan/CBP-Directive-3340-049A-Border-Search-of-Electronic-Media-Compliant.pdf>.

Sector(s): Border-Wide

Agency(ies): CBP

Event Type(s): Civil Liberties or Privacy Infringement

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

September 15, 2022

A letter from several non-profit organizations and an article at BuzzFeed point to border law enforcement officials inventing addresses around the United States and adding them to asylum seekers’ immigration paperwork, when those asylum seekers lack U.S. relatives, contacts, or specific destinations. In most cases, the addresses that officials—usually Border Patrol agents—add to documents like immigration-court hearing notices and Notices to Appear are those of non-profit service providers in cities around the United States.

CBP and Border Patrol do not inform those service providers. “Catholic Charities in New York, City received over 300 such notices,” the letter reads. It adds that asylum seekers are showing up at nonprofits or churches around the country with paperwork, issued by CBP, Border Patrol or ICE, showing those entities’ locations as migrants’ intended residences.

An October 2022 Associated Press review of 13 migrants’ documents found addresses including those of “administrative offices of Catholic Charities in New York and San Antonio; an El Paso, Texas, church; a private home in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts; and a group operating homeless shelters in Salt Lake City.”

In many cases, the non-profits are not prepared for the migrants’ arrival or to receive walk-ins. In some cases, service providers receive notifications that migrants may be headed their way, but are unable to locate them. “These immigrants and asylum-seekers, most of them from Venezuela, then show up to random buildings confused and unsure of what to do next,” BuzzFeed reported. “It’s definitely been happening, and there’s hundreds of cases,” BuzzFeed reporter Adolfo Flores told Texas Standard.

“The DHS [Department of Homeland Security] agent will just seem to invent an address from thin air to put on their release paperwork,” immigration attorney and asylum advocate Taylor Levy told BuzzFeed. At times, she said, the Border Patrol agent or ICE officer will mislead the migrant, telling them that shelter and other services will be available at the address.

Reports about eight Venezuelan men arriving, baffled, at a Sacramento, California office building were apparently one of these cases. They were flown there by a San Antonio, Texas service provider that had purchased plane tickets based on the addresses that U.S. border law enforcement personnel had added to the migrants’ immigration forms. A Venezuelan migrant told the New York Times that he and his brother “had no family in the United States. ‘The officials picked Denver for us, and that was it.'”

This practice jeopardizes asylum-seekers’ immigration cases. If the migrant does not receive notifications for court hearings or other required appearances they cannot follow through with their cases, which can lead to in-absentia deportation orders. All correspondence regarding such appearances gets mailed to the address on these forms, unless the migrant goes to a nearby ICE office to change it, a complex process.

Some of the problem stems from agencies’ need to process large numbers of asylum seekers quickly, at a time of record migration. “I’m sure that Border Patrol agents, they’re just trying to get people out of their facilities. They don’t want to hold them there any longer than they have to, and without an address, in some cases I’m sure the agents tell them it’s either ‘I put this address or you stay here longer,’” Flores of BuzzFeed told Texas Standard.

Still, Levy told Flores, “it is certainly wrong—and appears illegal—for federal agents sworn to uphold the law to randomly choose addresses of churches, legal service agencies, and immigration nonprofits from crude google searches and then record them as alleged ‘residential’ addresses for desperate asylum-seekers.”

— American Immigration Lawyers’ Association and coalition partners. “AILA and Partners Submit Recommendations to Fix Erroneous Addresses on Asylum Seekers’ Documents,” September 15, 2022. <https://www.aila.org/infonet/organizations-urge-administration-to-address>.

— Flores, Adolfo. “Border Agents Keep Sending Immigrants To Wrong Addresses With Little Regard For How It Could Affect Their Court Cases, Advocates Say.” BuzzFeed News, September 21, 2022. <https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/immigrants-border-wrong-addresses-shelter>.

— Kristen Cabrera. “Federal Immigration Agents Are Writing Wrong Addresses on Some Migrants’ Documents, Creating Confusion.” Texas Standard (blog), September 27, 2022. <https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/federal-immigration-agents-writing-wrong-addresses-migrants-documents-creating-confusion/>.

— Clauda Torrens and Vanessa A. Alvarez. “US Border Patrol Sends Migrants Places Where No Help Waits.” Associated Press, October 24, 2022. <https://apnews.com/article/texas-new-york-manhattan-religion-immigration-6d400698888dc0797f1883176baf12c7>.

— Robles, Justo. “No Money or Options: A Migrant’s Unexpected Journey to California.” The Guardian, September 24, 2022, sec. US news. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/24/migrant-plane-venezuela-sacramento>.

— Jordan, Miriam, and Brittany Kriegstein. “Abrupt New Border Expulsions Split Venezuelan Families.” The New York Times, November 6, 2022, sec. U.S. <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/us/venezuelan-families-separated-border.html>.

Sector(s): Border-Wide

Agency(ies): Border Patrol, CBP, ICE

Event Type(s): Falsification or Negligent Handling of Asylum Paperwork

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Venezuela

September 15, 2022

Fronteras Desk interviewed Yuma, Arizona-based advocate Fernando Quiroz, who monitors Border Patrol apprehensions of asylum-seeking migrants in the Yuma Sector. Quiroz discussed Border Patrol’s widely denounced confiscation of migrants’ belongings in the sector.

They [hundreds of migrants per day] bring backpacks, clothes, supplies, toys, money, important documents, and starting last year, Quiroz says much of it was being thrown in the trash when they were taken into custody. He took pictures of entire dumpsters filled with their belongings and he asked Border Patrol about it.

“They would say, ‘We here at this Yuma sector, we are not travel agents. We do not have the manpower, we don’t have the people, we don’t have the storage and it’s also a safety issue for us for these individuals to carry their backpacks or their belongings into our sector,’” Quiroz said. “So every single one, imagine every single day, from 400 to 1,000 individuals who are told, ‘Throw your backpack in the trash.’ It is heartbreaking. It typically is very heartbreaking. We’re talking about — this is all they have.”

…“I have here things that I have collected of individuals that have thrown in the trash, from prayer rugs to Bibles to Qurans to religious artifacts. It is sad,” Quiroz said.

— Lauren Gilger. “Border Patrol Made Migrants Throw Away Backpacks, Passports, Birth Certificates.” Fronteras Desk, September 15, 2022. <https://fronterasdesk.org/content/1810080/border-patrol-made-migrants-throw-away-backpacks-passports-birth-certificates>.

Sector(s): Yuma

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

Mid-September 2022

Reporting in September 2022, the Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) related the separation of an Indigenous Mexican father and son in Border Patrol custody.

BP [Border Patrol] apprehended Alan [name changed to protect privacy] and his 17 year old son after they had walked nearly 2 days in the desert. BP brought them to a holding cell where they stayed for one night together. The next morning, they separated Alan from his son, even after he explained their relationship. The agents only said that it was a crime to cross without papers. Alan arrived at KBI after spending 11 days detained and with no information about his son’s whereabouts. Further, Alan and his son speak Nahuatl natively and Spanish is their second language, making the family reunification process even more challenging.

— “September 15 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 15, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Family Separation

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Accompanied Child, Family Unit, Indigenous, Mexico

Mid-September 2022

The Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) related the expulsion of a protection-seeking Mexican family that had just suffered an armed assault.

Before Nicolas [name changed to protect privacy] , his wife and children crossed into the US, they suffered an armed assault in Nogales, Sonora. They sought asylum with a BP official who told him they would be able to seek asylum, but shortly after, expelled them without explanation and without channeling them to a fear interview. On the bus that took them back to Nogales, Nicolas approached an agent and said he couldn’t go back to his country, that they would kill him, but the agent responded, “I don’t care; go back to your country.” CBP then expelled Nicolas and his family back to where they had just been assaulted.

— “September 15 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 15, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Dangerous Deportation, Denial of Protection to Most Vulnerable

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Family Unit, Mexico

Mid-September 2022

The Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) related the expulsion of a Honduran mother and children seeking to escape sexual abuse and prolonged captivity, even after Border Patrol agents gave her hope of being able to seek asylum.

Heydi [name changed to protect privacy] and her 2 daughters fled Honduras where a member of organized crime had held Heydi captive for the past 10 years and forced her to have children with him. When BP apprehended Heydi and her daughters in the desert, she showed an agent evidence that she had been held captive and explained that she wanted to seek asylum. He only said, “okay.” On the bus to Tucson, she approached an agent that she noticed spoke Spanish well and explained her situation. He asked to see the evidence, read over the papers and told her to show them to the agents in Tucson so that they could help her. Once in Tucson, she asked the agent processing her how she could request asylum. He responded, “No, we can’t help you.” That same day, Heydi and her daughters were expelled to Nogales, Sonora, where they live in fear of being deported to Honduras, as they have no authorization to stay in Mexico.

— “September 15 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 15, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Denial of Protection to Most Vulnerable

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Domestic or Gender-Based Violence Victim, Family Unit, Female, Honduras

September 1, 2022

“The Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector has a new challenge coin that features concertina wire around the Border Patrol’s badge,” wrote Pedro Rios, of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program, at the San Diego Union-Tribune. “In its description on its website, it says the concertina wire symbolizes ‘a new way of thinking about border security in San Diego.’” Rios added, “That the Border Patrol would promote coils of razor-sharp wires made for a battlefield as its emblem to display its philosophy is concerning.”

On September 3, CBP removed the challenge coin from the Border Patrol Sector’s website. “That challenge coin is not in keeping with the agency’s mission and values, and we are reviewing the process by which it was produced and displayed on our website,” read a statement from CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus.

The “challenge coins” issue had come up earlier in 2022, when reports emerged of unofficial coins being sold online with defiant messages, some celebrating a controversial incident involving mounted Border Patrol agents and Haitian migrants in September 2021.

— Pedro Rios, “The Border Patrol emblem promotes razor-sharp wires made for a battlefield. Why is it allowed?” (San Diego: San Diego Union-Tribune, September 1, 2022) <https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/community-voices-project/story/2022-09-01/the-border-patrol-emblem-promotes-coils-of-razor-sharp-wires-made-for-a-battlefield>.

— Pedro Rios @Pedroconsafos on Twitter, September 3, 2022 <https://twitter.com/Pedroconsafos/status/1566199248818843648>.

— Internet Archive copy of “San Diego Sector California” (Washington: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, July 25, 2022) <https://web.archive.org/web/20220827001221/https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-patrol-sectors/san-diego-sector-california>.

Sector(s): San Diego

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Insubordinate or Highly Politicized Conduct

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

Late August, 2022

The Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative reported a case of Border Patrol agents’ non-return of a Mexican migrant’s belongings.

BP apprehended Ronel [name changed to protect privacy] and brought him to Florence, AZ to be detained. BP agents took all of his belongings- his cell phone, money, and legal documents- and did not return them upon his deportation. Ronel was thus stranded in Nogales, Sonora without any identification, money or way to contact his family. 

— “September 1 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 1, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Confiscation of Documents, Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Mexico, Single Adult

Late August, 2022

The Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative reported a case of Border Patrol agents’ non-return of a Mexican migrant’s belongings and identification documents.

BP apprehend Brayan [name changed to protect privacy] and confiscated all his personal belongings- $1,800 pesos ($89 USD), a chain with a diamond ring that his father had given to him, a Bible, the keys to his home, his cell phone with all of his contacts, his Mexican IDs, and birth certificate. BP thus deported Brayan to Nogales, Sonora without any of the resources necessary to return home and without the personal items with sentimental value that had helped sustain him in his journey.

— “September 1 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 1, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Confiscation of Documents, Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Mexico, Single Adult

Late August, 2022

The Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative reported a case of Border Patrol agents’ non-return and destruction of a Mexican migrant’s belongings and identification documents.

When BP apprehended Samuel [name changed to protect privacy], agents confiscated all his belongings. They took his phone and removed the SIM card and pocketed it, took his wallet that had $300 in it and removed the credit cards and pocketed them as well. They ripped up his birth certificate in front of him.The agents were speaking in English amongst themselves, so he couldn’t understand what they were saying. He was only able to save his Mexican ID because he had previously hid it in his shoe.

— “September 1 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, September 1, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Confiscation of Documents, Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Mexico, Single Adult

August 16, 2022

“Family members are still being separated under some circumstances” at the border during the Biden administration, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, “including if a parent has a criminal history, has health issues, or is being criminally prosecuted.” A DHS report to Congress counted 227 family separations in 2021 (original link).

— Kate Morrissey, Family Separations at the Border Continue Under Biden (San Diego: The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 16, 2022) https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2022-08-16/family-separations-at-the-border-continue-under-biden.

— Family Unit Actions Report October 1, 2020-September 30, 2021 (Washington: Department of Homeland Security Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, March 23, 2022) https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/22_0323_plcy_family_unit_actions_report_fy21_September_0.pdf.

Sector(s): Border-Wide

Agency(ies): CBP

Event Type(s): Family Separation

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Family Unit

Early August, 2022

“In the past 2 weeks, Kino has served 16 people that DHS has deported between 12 am and 3 am,” the Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported on August 18.

Esmeralda [name changed to protect privacy] fled violence in Nicaragua and entered the US to request asylum, she was forced to wait in Mexico under MPP, due to the dangers and inhuman conditions on the Mexican northeast border, she tried to request asylum again in Arizona,  Border Patrol expelled her to Nogales at midnight, upon which Mexican police robbed her. 

— “August 18 Update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 18, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Dangerous Deportation

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Female, Nicaragua, Single Adult

Early August, 2022

“In the past 2 weeks, Kino has served 16 people that DHS has deported between 12 am and 3 am,” the Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported on August 18.

Julia [name changed to protect privacy] and her 7 year old daughter fled Guerrero due to threats of sexual violence toward herself and her daughter. When they crossed into the US, BP detained them and Julia explained she wanted to seek asylum due to violence in Mexico. But BP just took their bio information, without asking further inquiring about their fear, and deported them to Mexico at 3 a.m., placing Julia and her daughter in danger of potentially experiencing the very sexual violence they were fleeing. 

— “August 18 Update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 18, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Dangerous Deportation

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Accompanied Child, Family Unit, Female, Mexico

August 5, 2022

“White men are in charge of 21 of the 22 Border Patrol outposts on the northern, coastal, and southern borders despite the agency being comprised of mostly Hispanic employees,” and only 1 of the 22 sector chiefs is female, the Washington Examiner reported.

““One Hispanic Chief out of 22. That one is female. So an organization with so many Hispanic males they cannot find any qualified to be a chief?” a senior Border Patrol official in Washington told the Examiner. “Of course we shouldn’t promote based on race, but there are a lot of things that seem off.” Former Tucson Sector Chief Victor Manjarrez “said the social hierarchy of agents, or politics, played a significant role and still affects who gets picked for promotions.”

— Anna Giaritelli, “Hispanic agents make up majority of Border Patrol yet white men dominate leadership posts” (Washington: Washington Examiner, August 5, 2022) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/hispanic-agents-majority-border-patrol-white-men-dominate-leadership.

Sector(s): Border-Wide, Northern Border

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Racial Discrimination or Profiling

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification:

August 3, 2022

Arizona Luminaria recounted the mistreatment of a Sikh asylum seeker who turned himself in to Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents.

On Aug. 3, a Sikh asylum-seeker crossed the border along with his wife and two young children near Yuma to turn themselves in to Border Patrol, according to Ahluwalia. After waiting more than 12 hours near the border wall, they were finally bused to the nearby station for processing.

After waiting all day in the sun — with the parents taking turns holding their young children, ages 2 and 4 — the man was feeling weak and ill, and was beginning to struggle to breathe. He was given water and allowed to sit down as two officers, one of whom he described as rude and aggressive ordered him to remove his turban, according to Ahluwalia.

He explained that he was happy to take it off and let them search it, but he wanted it back afterward. The officers took it off, took photos of him with his hair loose, and confiscated the turban. He said he felt humiliated.

As the processing continued, he told the officers he was feeling worse. They pressured him into signing paperwork he didn’t understand, telling him, “You need to sign this,” in a manner he felt was threatening, according to the case notes. They accused him of pretending to be sick, and one officer pulled him to his feet, pushed him against the wall, and handcuffed him.

His wife, who witnessed the aggression, began crying. When he tried to console her and his children, speaking to them in Punjabi, the officer who handcuffed him said, “You need to speak f—ing English,” he later told his attorney.

The officer then escorted him to a small solitary confinement cell and left him alone. He was in the room for a few hours, during which he threw up two to three times. Though he said there were cameras in the room, and he was banging on the door for help, nobody came. Finally, about three hours later, he was taken back to his family and an officer unshackled him.

He asked multiple times if he could have his turban back, according to Ahluwalia, but he never saw it again. He also repeatedly asked for medical attention, but was denied, with an officer explaining to him that he had already been given Tylenol. Four or five days later, after he was released, a volunteer at a welcome center in Tucson gave him cloth to cover his head.

“I wanted to cry,” he told his attorney. At the welcome center he tested positive for COVID-19, he told Ahluwalia.

— Washington, John. “Border Patrol Has New Orders Not to Trash Sikh Turbans but Isn’t Sharing Guidance Publicly, Advocates Say.” AZ Luminaria, September 19, 2022. <http://azluminaria.org/2022/09/19/border-patrol-now-instructing-agents-to-stop-taking-sikh-turbans/>.

Sector(s): Yuma

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings, Religious Freedom Violation

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Family Unit, Sikh

August 1, 2022

Data obtained by the Cato Institute show that, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, CBP personnel have used the Title 42 health provision to expel thousands of families with toddlers and babies into Mexico in the post-midnight hours, despite safety risks. The statistics “show that as of May 31, CBP had used its Title 42 ‘health’ authority to expel 30,806 children ages 3 and under—with about 41 percent of these expulsions occurring at midnight or later,” noted a blog post from Cato’s associate director of immigration studies, David Bier.

Under normal circumstances, CBP’s repatriation agreements with Mexico prohibit removals to Mexican border towns between 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM, except under emergency circumstances. Title 42 expulsions have occurred without regard to these repatriation restrictions. “The Biden Administration is actually expelling more children at night than even the Trump Administration did,” Cato noted.

— David J. Bier, “CBP Is Expelling Thousands of Infants and Toddlers to Mexico After Midnight” (Washington: Cato at Liberty, August 1, 2022) https://www.cato.org/blog/cbp-expelling-thousands-infants-toddlers-mexico-after-midnight.

Sector(s): Border-Wide

Agency(ies): CBP

Event Type(s): Dangerous Deportation, Denial of Protection to Most Vulnerable, Endangerment

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Accompanied Child, Family Unit

Late July, 2022

The Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported on August 4 that “Walter [name changed to protect privacy], a gay man from El Salvador, recently arrived at Kino after surviving an attempted murder in his country.”

On his journey, the coyote abandoned him in the desert, where he wandered alone until he was able to find BP and present himself to seek asylum. Despite explaining his situation, showing the scars from the murder attempt and explaining that he would be killed if he had to return to El Salvador, BP [Border Patrol] expelled him to Mexico.

— “August 4 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 4, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Denial of Protection to Most Vulnerable

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: El Salvador, LGBTQ, Single Adult

Late July, 2022

On August 4, 2022, the Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported a significant case of non-return of migrants’ valuable belongings:

Last weekend, ICE deported a group of 12 migrants to Nogales after being detained. Every person reported that upon their encounter with BP, agents took away all their belongings and said they would return them upon arriving in Tucson, which never happened. When they arrived in Nogales, their belongings still had not been returned. Items confiscated included money (one individual lost $200 USD), wallets, phones, and jewelry with sentimental value. One person from the group shared that he witnessed a Border Patrol agent take $3,000 pesos [about US$150] from another migrant and rip it up in his face saying, “This is trash, this is of no value to you here,” before throwing the ripped bills in the trash can.

— “August 4 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 4, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Mexico

Late July, 2022

On August 4, 2022, the Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported the case of a migrant who had precious belongings taken from him in Border Patrol custody:

BP [Border Patrol] took Miguel’s* [name changed for privacy reasons] clothes, underwear, Mexican ID, phone, Bible and rosary. His phone contained all his family members’ phone numbers, as well as family photos. Upon deportation, he wasn’t able to contact his family until he borrowed someone else’s phone to search for them on Facebook. Though he was eventually able to make contact, he will never get his family photos back. He commented to KBI staff that although a rosary may not be of much value to some people, his faith sustained him during the journey.

— “August 4 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 4, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Mexico, Single Adult

Late July, 2022

On August 4, 2022, the Nogales, Arizona-based Kino Border Initiative (KBI) reported the consequences of Border Patrol taking a migrant’s mobile phone away from him in custody, and deporting him without it.

BP confiscated Jose’s* [name changed for privacy reasons] phone when they detained him and did not return it when they deported him to Nogales, Mexico. Since he did not have any family phone number memorized, when he arrived in Nogales, Jose had no way of contacting his family to let them know he is okay or to ask that they send money so he can return home. Although staff at Kino spent about a half hour helping José look on Facebook to try to find a family member, they could not find anyone, leaving Jose stranded in Nogales without the ability to contact family members.

Although KBI collaborates with local organizations and consulates to assist expelled individuals recover their personal belongings, when migrants’ phones are confiscated and not returned to them, it prevents Kino and other border organizations from following up with them and can prevent migrants themselves from looking up contact info for relatives or neighbors to whom their belongings can be sent.

— “August 4 update from KBI” (Nogales: Kino Border Initiative, August 4, 2022).

Sector(s): Tucson

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Single Adult

July 2022

According to an October 3, 2022 letter from a coalition of Arizona-based groups led by ACLU Arizona to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, the AZ-CA Humanitarian Coalition “encountered an Afro-Cuban migrant whose religious artifact (a small figurine of significance in the Lukumí faith) was confiscated by Arizona Border Patrol agents.”

— Several Arizona Non-Governmental Human Rights Groups. “Letter to CBP Regarding Treatment of Migrants’ Personal Belongings,” October 3, 2022. <https://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/2022.10.03_letter_to_cbp_regarding_treatment_of_migrants_personal_belongings.pdf>.

Sector(s): Yuma

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Black, Cuba

July 2022

An October 3, 2022 letter from a coalition of Arizona-based groups, led by ACLU Arizona, to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus, reports that the AZ-CA Humanitarian Coalition “encountered a man whose new laptop was confiscated by Border Patrol agents in Arizona. The laptop contained legal evidence for his asylum claim as well as all of his family photos.”

— Several Arizona Non-Governmental Human Rights Groups. “Letter to CBP Regarding Treatment of Migrants’ Personal Belongings,” October 3, 2022. <https://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/2022.10.03_letter_to_cbp_regarding_treatment_of_migrants_personal_belongings.pdf>.

Sector(s): Tucson, Yuma

Agency(ies): Border Patrol

Event Type(s): Non-Return of Belongings

Last Known Accountability Status: Unknown

Victim Classification: Single Adult