Asylum officers have documented at least 100 cases, including some in San Diego, where border officials may not have followed U.S. law for processing asylum seekers, according to public records obtained through a request by Human Rights Watch.

Under U.S. law, border officials are required to ask people arriving at the border who don’t have documents for entry if they are afraid to go back to their home countries. If the migrants say, “Yes,” then officials must process them as asylum seekers and allow them to speak with asylum officers to determine whether their fears are credible.

Reports of border officials dismissing such migrants or, in some cases, intimidating asylum seekers into giving up their claims before they’re processed into the system, have surfaced from advocacy organizations and immigration attorneys in the San Diego area since at least the summer of 2016. According to the records obtained by Human Rights Watch, asylum officers have documented allegations of such behavior since at least 2012.

Human Rights Watch said the documents it received, a combination of emails and reports, were heavily redacted and missing files, so it sued U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services this week for a more complete response.


“There seems to be records of a group of [asylum officers] going back and forth and trying to collate a large number of cases to determine exactly what the percentage of problematic behavior is that they’re finding,” said Clara Long, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s U.S. program, describing the documents that she does have.

Emails between asylum officers indicated that they created a spreadsheet in 2014 to track mistreatment of asylum seekers by border officials, Long said. While the spreadsheet wasn’t included in the records released to Human Rights Watch, Long said the emails suggested that it includes at least 100 cases.

She hopes that the lawsuit will force the government to turn over the spreadsheet as well as more recent documents. The records she received go from 2012 to 2016.

Some asylum seekers reported being physically assaulted by officials at the border. A minor who came to the U.S. somewhere in Texas — it’s not clear from the redactions exactly where — reported that he’d been knocked down by an official who punched him in the forehead.


An Ecuadorian man told his asylum officer that he was afraid to claim fear of returning home after he saw a border official use some type of weapon to zap two other migrants with electricity to force them to sign a document that would return them to their home countries.

At least three of the cases mentioned in the documents happened in the San Diego area. In one case out of the San Ysidro port of entry, an asylum seeker told the interviewing officer that, in January 2016, the migrant did not understand the questions that a Customs and Border Protection officer asked in Spanish, and the exchange brought the migrant to tears. The officer then threatened to deport the person.

A second case documented by an asylum officer occurred at the same port in August 2014. The report suggests that the CBP official used legal jargon rather than asking questions in a way the asylum seeker could understand, making it difficult for the migrant show a fear of returning home.

Another asylum officer raised concerns about an incident at the Otay Mesa port in June 2015 where the migrant said CBP officers threatened to take away her children.


Human Rights Watch filed the records request in 2015 and received the initial response last year. The organization filed an appeal to push for a more complete response from the agency, and after accepting the appeal, USCIS has not responded further, according to Human Rights Watch.

Maria Upson, spokeswoman for USCIS, said that the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which houses both USCIS and Customs and Border Protection, similarly declined to comment on the allegations in the documents that have been released.

Prior to lawsuits questioning agency practices, Customs and Border Protection has defended its policies for asylum seekers, saying its officials follow U.S. law.

Human Rights Watch has monitored treatment of asylum seekers at the U.S. border for years.


In 2014, it released a report that found Hondurans were particularly unlikely to be referred from CBP to the asylum process. It also found that the majority of people who entered the asylum process did not come from a CBP referral but rather on an ad-hoc basis from other agencies who learned of the hopeful-immigrants’ fears.

Organizations that advocate for asylum seekers filed a series of complaints in 2017 alleging that border officials were illegally turning away asylum seekers without allowing them to talk to asylum officers. Those complaints culminated in a federal lawsuit filed in July in Los Angeles that was later transferred to San Diego.

All but one of the plaintiffs in the suit had tried to request asylum in the San Diego area.

One asylum seeker in that lawsuit reported being told, “Donald Trump just signed new laws saying there is no asylum for anyone.”


A couple of the plaintiffs alleged that border officials threatened to take their children away if they asked for asylum.

Michael Knowles, president of the union that represents asylum officers, said that his union members have been concerned about reports of asylum seekers being denied access to the process since the mid 90s. That’s when Congress created expedited removal, which allows border officials to remove new arrivals without taking them to see immigration judges unless they say they’re afraid to go home.

He said the union hasn’t tracked data on how often asylum seekers say that border officials mistreated them, but he hears about it anecdotally from union members.

“It is an ongoing concern for our members,” Knowles said. “We’re very committed to our job, which is to adjudicate asylum applications. It’s part of the homeland security mission. It concerns us when there’s anything that gets in the way of us doing our job, just like Border Patrol or ICE complains that the previous administration hindered them from enforcing immigration laws.”


“We understand they have to control the borders,” Knowles added, “but people ought to be fairly treated, and they ought to have access to the asylum process.”

Human Rights Watch researcher Long said these anecdotes are more worrisome under the Trump administration because the president has suggested expanding the scope of expedited removal from the border region to throughout the country.

“If there are already documented problems in the application of expedited removal, in that it gives enormous amounts of power to immigration agents who are apparently not exercising it in appropriate ways, then we could see an enormous expansion of these kinds of problems,” Long said.

Human Rights Watch plans to release a full report on its findings later this year.


Immigration Videos On Now New developments in family separation case 9:53 On Now A San Diego woman volunteered as a medic in Texas helping migrant families 2:35 On Now Immigration policy protests in Carlsbad nearly cancelled after permit issue 1:38 On Now When children are separated from their parents at the border, here is where they go next On Now Prospects of a deal for 'Dreamers' may hinge on separating Trump from hard-liners on his staff On Now What is DACA? On Now Border wall prototype contractors selected On Now Video: Ukrainian boxer wins asylum in U.S. On Now 30 apprehended after Border Patrol agents discover tunnel On Now Video: Kurdish diaspora prepare to vote on independence


Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter