SAN DIEGO (CN) — In an explosive new lawsuit, two migrant and refugee nonprofits are suing U.S. Customs and Border Protection in an effort to force the agency to hand over information about what the groups describe as bare-bones outdoor migrant-holding camps in the San Diego County desert.
Towards the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Trump administration invoked Title 42, a public health measure that allows the federal government to suspend trade or immigration into the U.S. to prevent the spread of a communicable disease.
After the Biden administration rescinded Title 42 in April 2023, large numbers of migrants from all over the world started once again crossing the border — including in a remote stretch of San Diego County near Jacumba Hot Springs and the Valley of the Moon wilderness, where there’s a gap in the border wall separating the U.S. from Mexico.
Since then, rights groups say CBP has forced thousands of migrants awaiting asylum claims into outdoor camps without water, food, shelter, medical care or other services.
CBP calls these makeshift camps “gather sites.” Rights groups, on the other hand, call them “detention sites,” since migrants held there say they aren't allowed to leave, according to the lawsuit filed this week by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and Al Otro Lado, two migrant civil-rights groups.
CBP declined to comment on the allegations, citing the pending litigation.
Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to migrants and refugees, in October filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents outlining CBP’s policies and practices at these detention sites.
Along with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, a nonprofit that defends the rights of refugees, Al Otro Lado filed a second request in December for information about all other outdoor migrant camps run by CBP.
The nonprofits say CBP hasn’t responded to either FOIA request. On Thursday, they sued the agency in federal court in San Francisco for failing to make public records available.
“It is unconscionable that the Department of Homeland Security, an agency with a multi-billion dollar annual budget, would deprioritize the humane treatment of migrants to such an extent that those seeking safety at our borders are not provided with the basic items they need to survive,” Erika Pinheiro, Al Otro Lado’s executive director, stated in a press release.
“Trapping human beings in squalid camps without access to food, water, and medical care contravenes our laws and morals," Pinheiro added. "We deserve to know why the U.S. government is deploying our tax dollars in a way that threatens the lives of the most vulnerable.”
Before May 2023, CBP took migrants and asylum seekers apprehended near the border directly to holding facilities, the plaintiffs claim.
Since then, however, they say most migrants are sent to outdoor camps without shelter, food or water. They say this violates CBP’s own standards, which require the agency to provide clean and safe environments, regular meals, drinking water and restrooms for migrants.
“While CBP claims that smugglers or cartels are responsible for bringing immigrants to these sites, aid workers have reported seeing CBP officers dropping off migrants at the sites multiple times per week," the groups claim in their lawsuit. Citing an interview with a CBP officer, they describe the migrants in Jacumba as existing in a Kafkaesque limbo where they're "not free to leave, but also not detained."
The groups believe that CPB has guidelines and policies for how they operate these outdoor migrant camps. However, since CBP denies that migrants in these camps are in custody, they claim not to have any obligation to provide them with anything beyond minimal water and snacks, the groups added in their lawsuit.
Eventually, the groups say CBP agreed to some humanitarian measures at the camps — including providing portable toilets, allowing aid groups to distribute food and letting ambulances pick up ill or injured people. Even then, though, ambulances are not allowed to drive up to the camps and instead have to wait down the road, the plaintiffs claim.
Worse still, the plaintiffs claim those humanitarian groups are now running out of money. Without more information on CBP’s plans, they say they won’t be able to help migrants, including children and pregnant mothers stuck in these camps.
With their new lawsuit, the groups hope to force CBP to respond to their FOIA requests by releasing documents on the camps. "Disclosure of the requested information will fulfill the transparency and accountability goals of the FOIA and will aid the public, advocates, and migrants in comprehending how the U.S. government is treating those who seek refuge in this country,” they say in their lawsuit.
“People held in CBP’s open air detention sites have suffered grave human rights violations,” Edith Sangüeza, staff attorney at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, stated in a press release. “Desperate families, children, and adults have been trapped in perilous conditions, left without protection from the elements and vulnerable to illness."
"CBP’s callous disregard for the safety of migrants in its custody has already resulted in at least three deaths," Sangüeza added. "The agency cannot keep sidestepping accountability. People seeking safety deserve answers, as do the humanitarian aid groups that have stepped in where the government has failed to protect lives.”
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