The Trump Administration Is Secretly Tracking Journalists and Activists
Protesters during a 2018 "Families Belong Together: Freedom for Immigrants"
march in Los Angeles. (Willy Sanjuan / Invision / AP)
In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, President Trump described the
approximately 5,000 asylum seekers traveling largely on foot from Central
America to the United States as an "invasion." His description extended not
only to the asylum seekers themselves, but to anyone even tangentially
affiliated with them. As KNSD, an NBC affiliate in San Diego, reported
Wednesday, leaked documents show the government has assembled a secret
database of immigration activists, lawyers, journalists and even social
media influencers who have reported on, assisted with or been otherwise
connected to the so-called migrant caravan.
The report links the tracking to when migrants reached the U.S.-Mexico
border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in November. NBC reports that
"journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered
assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of
intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials."
Fifty-nine people, mostly Americans, are listed in the database, named the
"San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019
Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators, and Media" and created by
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
After Democrats won the House in November, Trump and the GOP as a whole grew
quieter about the caravan, leading some pundits to believe the president had
realized he'd made a mistake by turning it into an election issue.
"Trump hasn't tweeted about the caravan in days," Eugene Scott wrote in The
Washington Post just after the midterm elections. "His unwillingness to
bring it up himself since the election has led critics to suggest that even
the president knew that his level of attention to the issue was overblown."
But although presidential tweeting about the caravan stopped, Trump and GOP
leaders did not forget about it. In February, Trump used the issue in part
to justify declaring a national emergency in order to build a border
wall-and, as the documents NBC received shows, to justify going after
activists, lawyers and journalists.
The documents were provided to NBC by a Department of Homeland Security
staff member, on the condition of anonymity. As NBC reports, the database is
quite detailed:
"
For each person, the documents show their photo, often from their passport
but in some cases from their social media accounts, along with their
personal information. That information includes the person's date of birth,
their "country of commencement," and their alleged role tied to the migrant
caravan. The information also includes whether officials placed an alert on
the person's passport.
Some individuals have a colored "X" over their photo, indicating whether
they were arrested, interviewed, or had their visa or SENTRI pass revoked by
officials.
Homeland Security had assembled dossiers on each person listed, even though,
the source pointed out to NBC, "We are a criminal investigation agency,
we're not an intelligence agency." The source added, "We can't create
dossiers on people, and they're creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the
Border Search Authority."
At least one person wasn't surprised to learn her information is in the
database. Nicole Ramos, refugee director and attorney for Al Otro Lado, a
legal organization for migrants and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico, told NBC,
"The document appears to prove what we have assumed for some time, which is
that we are on a law enforcement list designed to retaliate against human
rights defenders who work with asylum seekers and who are critical of CBP
practices that violate the rights of asylum seekers."
Customs and Border Protection declined to answer specific questions from
NBC, but instead responded with an emailed statement saying, "Criminal
events, such as the breach of the border wall in San Diego, involving
assaults on law enforcement and a risk to public safety, are routinely
monitored and investigated by authorities."
Read NBC's full report, which includes photographs of the Homeland Security
documents, here.
Ilana Novick
Blogger / Editorial Assistant
In this article:
#cbp database #customs and border patrol #donald trump #immigration #migrant
caravan #surveillance #u.s.-mexico border
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