Beyond the Border: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Presence at Racial Justice Protests in Summer of 2020

Many people mistakenly believe that the role of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is confined to border enforcement.

But in the summer of 2020, CBP officers were deployed alongside local law enforcement to police those participating in protests far from the border demanding racial justice.

As the Council and our partners the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) found in a report, CBP overstepped its mandate and became involved in policing these protests, often without first consulting city and state authorities. Through our litigation, we secured documents from CBP that showed top officials were concerned that its agents weren’t trained to interact with protestors, and initially did not know that CBP agents had arrested protestors in unmarked vans.

KJ

Go in-depth: keeping CBP accountable