Border agents may have violated court orders while enforcing Trump travel ban

Alan Gomez | USA TODAY

Customs and Border Protection agents were "caught by surprise" by President Trump's original travel ban against majority-Muslim nations and may have violated two separate court orders while implementing it, a government report released Friday concluded.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General report chronicled the "chaotic" days that followed after Trump signed the travel ban into effect during a ceremony at the Pentagon last Jan. 27.

The ban has been the subject of dozens of federal lawsuits. And the Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear one of those challenges to decide whether the ban is constitutional.

Trump's order instituted a 120-day ban on refugees entering the U.S. and a 90-day ban for most citizens of Libya, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The order also indefinitely barred any Syrians from entering the U.S.

From the first day, the report found that the order caused widespread confusion.

Only two senior Homeland Security officials saw a draft of the travel ban before Trump signed. Most employees only heard about it from media reports in the days leading up to the signing. The report found that Customs and Border Protection leadership received the most detailed account of the upcoming ban, "from Congressional staffers who apparently were better informed."

The executive order went into immediate effect the moment Trump signed it, but Homeland Security leadership was caught off guard. John Kelly, the president's chief of staff who was then the secretary of Homeland Security, was traveling at the time of the signing, forcing his deputy to lead a conference call to issue marching orders to his agents around the globe.

Even during that conference call, the report found that Homeland Security leadership was still unsure whether the order was in effect, and did not even have a copy of the order.

Trump's order wasn't widely circulated to Homeland Security until nearly two hours after he signed it. Even then, the scope of the executive order was a "source of confusion" for Homeland Security leadership.

That kicked off what the report dubbed "The Long Weekend" filled with protests at U.S. airports and a slew of lawsuits challenging the ban in federal courts across the country.

Border agents began processing incoming travelers at U.S. airports, preventing some travelers who were mid-air during the bill signing from clearing through customs. Other border agents who pre-screen travelers at foreign airports started preventing nationals of the seven targeted countries from boarding U.S.-bound flights.

One worker at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., said the day following the executive order was "one of the toughest days of his life" that could have been averted by a better explanation of the executive order.

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The report concluded that agents at U.S. airports did not violate any of the court orders that limited or halted the travel ban in the days that followed. Many travelers who were detained at U.S. airports complained of "harsh" treatment from border agents, with one Iranian woman traveling on a student visa saying she was held for 23 hours and forced to remove her shawl because it was deemed a "strangling hazard."

The report found that many border agents acted more generously, in some cases buying tea and coffee for detained travelers with their own money. Overall, the report did not verify any claims of U.S.-based border agents mistreating travelers or violating any of the court orders that followed.

But the report found that at least 30 people trying to enter the U.S. via land borders and U.S.-bound flights were improperly prevented from entering the U.S., possibly violating a ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn. Donnelly prevented border agents from enforcing the travel ban, but the report found that several border agents stationed at foreign airports disregarded her ruling.

"The fact that (Customs and Border Protection) nonetheless felt itself free to deny boarding overseas seems to be a highly aggressive stance in light of the court's concerns," the report found.

A separate court ruling out of Massachusetts led to a surprising confrontation between U.S. border agents and an international airline.

Two federal judges in Boston issued a ruling forcing Customs and Border Protection to allow all travelers to continue flying into Logan International Airport. After the ruling was issued, the report found that border agents stationed at overseas airports "circumvented" the order and issued "no-board" instructions against 20 Boston-bound travelers.

"But Lufthansa had other ideas," the report read.

A U.S. border official hand-delivered "no-board" orders barring several passengers to Lufthansa agents at a departure gate at Frankfurt Airport in Germany as the flight was preparing to depart. But Lufthansa officials had already consulted with its legal team and ignored the "no-board" orders.

The passengers were allowed to fly, and Customs and Border Protection officials decided to grant them waivers to enter the country.

The report concluded by saying that border agents "generally conducted themselves professionally" while scrambling to respond to the court order. But in several cases, the agency interpreted judicial rulings in way that violated "the overall spirit" of the orders.

The Department of Homeland Security denied that its agents violated any court orders. In a letter, the department acknowledged the "fast-paced and evolving" situation its agents faced while implementing Trump's executive order. But it said the Inspector General used flawed arguments to claim border agents violated a single court order.

"None of the courts referenced in the Report found noncompliance with their orders. Not one," the statement read. "The Department remains proud of the tremendous efforts of its officials at every organizational level during the exceptionally complex implementation of the (executive order)."

While Trump said the travel ban was necessary to ensure that terrorists do not infiltrate the U.S. through the nation's legal immigration system, the report found the inspections used while the travel ban was in effect "did not detect a single instance of terrorist threat."