AILA’s Advocacy Action Center allows you to advocate for legislative and policy reforms consistent with AILA’s principles and priorities.
Get InvolvedThe brand-new 18th edition of Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook is now shipping.
Order NowLearn how to tackle challenges like finding and retaining affordable staff, working better in a hybrid or remote environment, when and how to raise fees, and much more.
Register NowAILALink puts an entire immigration law library at your fingertips! Search the AILALink database for all your practice needs—statutes, regs, case law, agency guidance, publications, and more.
AILA Doc. No. 18122608 | Dated November 29, 2021
Conditions in CBP custody are notorious for their harshness and inadequacies. Whether inside or in outside holding “pens,” CBP detains migrants in dangerous conditions. These facilities can be dangerously overcrowded, migrants forced to wear soiled or dripping wet clothes for days, and the only “hot meal” offered are frozen burritos. These conditions came to the forefront when in 2019, children, many of whom were Indigenous children, died in CBP custody. Until the U.S. embraces a welcoming and more humane approach to receiving people at our border, suffering and the loss of life will continue.
Overlaying these conditions is the problem of the lack of accountability and oversight mechanisms for CBP. A Human Rights Watch report based on U.S. government documents detailed hundreds of internal reports of misconduct and serious abuse of asylum seekers at the hands of government officials at the border. These abuses included allegations of physical, sexual, and verbal abuse, due process violations, harsh detention conditions, denial of medical care, and discriminatory treatment at or near the border. However, it is rare that individual officers or CBP leadership face consequences. For example, a recent House Committee on Oversight and Reform report revealed how little CBP did to discipline agents who posted violent and offensive Facebook posts.
Our country’s inability to hold CBP accountable for their actions towards people and children in their custody result in repeated grave violations of human rights at our southern border. Immediate and significant reform is needed to hold the U.S.’ largest law enforcement agency accountable.
Government Announcements | Government Reports | Congressional Action | AILA Resources | Responses and Resources from Advocates | Media Response
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 18122608.
American Immigration Lawyers Association
1331 G Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Copyright © 1993-
American Immigration Lawyers Association.
AILA.org should not be relied upon as the exclusive source for your legal research. Nothing on AILA.org constitutes legal advice, and information on AILA.org is not a substitute for independent legal advice based on a thorough review and analysis of the facts of each individual case, and independent research based on statutory and regulatory authorities, case law, policy guidance, and for procedural issues, federal government websites.