Border Abuse
A 16-year-old girl sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the agents she says strip searched her without cause on her way home from Mexico with her adult sisters, in federal court.
Read moreCustoms and Border Protection
Civil Rights
The Santa Fe Dreamers Project sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a federal FOIA complaint seeking information on the agency’s “targeting of human rights defenders [including attorneys] by border enforcement agencies.”
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Judge Orders Feds to Give Immigrant Detainees Food, Blankets, Showers
The filthy and overcrowded detention cells in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, ordering all pretrial detainees held at processing centers for more than two days be given food, blankets and showers.
Read moreIranophobia
The Council on American Islamic Relations sued the Department Of Homeland Security in Seattle Federal Court, for information on “a directive issued to CBP (Customs and Border Protection) officers to detain and interrogate Iranian-Americans” at the Canadian border.
Read moreJudge Denies Injunction to Pastor Who Claims She Was Targeted For Work With Immigrants
A Christian pastor who ministers to immigrants and refugees failed to obtain a court order that would have prevented the government from continuing to monitor her activities along the U.S.-Mexico border and in New York.
Read moreDirty Officer
Former Customs and Border Protection Watch Commander Wei Xu, 58, of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., was sentenced Monday to 31 months in federal prison for four felonies, including running an illegal gun-dealing business, possessing machineguns and failing to disclose financial interests in China, federal prosecutors said.
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Judge OKs New Family Separations at US-Mexico Border
Handing the federal government its first “win” since it was sued for separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border, a federal judge Monday found continued separations are discretionary and do not violate a court and executive order abandoning the “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
Read moreTech Wasn’t Ready for Family-Separation Policy, Auditors Say
A government watchdog recounted failures with the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy on Wednesday, saying the Department of Homeland Security did not have technology it would need to track the families it separated.
Read moreBus Station Immigration Stop
A Latino man’s claims relating to his detention by Customs and Border Protection officers at a bus station may continue, a federal court in Washington ruled. The government may be liable under the state’s anti-discrimination law because the acts of the officers caused the man to be “treated as not welcome, accepted, desired, or solicited” based on his race.
Read moreJudge Says Feds Need Reasons for Border Tech Searches
A federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at border ports of entry and airports violate the Fourth Amendment.
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Judge Considers Restraining Government From Blocking Asylum Seeker’s Access to Counsel
A federal judge asked for clarification Friday about how exactly the federal government’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” are being employed by immigration agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego as he considers whether asylum seekers have a right to counsel when being interviewed about their fear of being returned to Mexico.
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Border Arrests and Denials for Entry Skyrocketed in Fiscal Year 2019
The Trump administration’s incessant rollout of immigration-stifling policies this year seem to have had their desired effect: Arrests and entry denials by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the southwest border fell from 144,000 in May to 52,000 last month. But the agency’s director said Tuesday the “crisis” is not over.
Read moreSri Lankan Fighting Deportation Will Get High Court Audience
Jailed, beaten and tortured for political activity during the Sri Lankan civil war, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam’s case for U.S. asylum was taken up Friday by the Supreme Court.
Read moreFeds Arrested Nearly 1 Million at Mexico Border in Past Year
New statistics reported Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection show that roughly 1 million migrants have been arrested at the southern border in the last year, the most in over a decade.
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Company Making Costco Pajamas Flagged for Forced Labor
The Trump administration is blocking shipments from a Chinese company making baby pajamas sold at Costco warehouses after the foreign manufacturer was accused of forcing ethnic minorities locked in an internment camp to sew clothes against their will.
Read moreUS Blocks Goods From Companies Suspected of Forced Labor
The Trump administration on Tuesday announced it is holding imports of clothing, gold, diamonds and other items believed to have been produced with forced labor by companies based in Brazil, China and Malaysia as well as some gold mined in eastern Congo and diamonds from a region in Zimbabwe.
Read moreHuman Cost of Border-Protection Policies High, Immigrant Advocates Reveal
Twenty-five years after “Operation Gatekeeper” changed the way immigration officials policed the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, immigrant advocates called for new policies Tuesday to curb the loss of life along the border.
Read moreCivil Rights Suit Highlights Enforcement of US-Canada Border
A 40-foot-wide dirt road stretches off into the distance through Sunburst, Montana, a tiny farming town in north-central Montana on the U.S.-Canada border.
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