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The Oct. 11 death of a 29-year-old Guinean woman who suffered a medical emergency in an open-air camp located between the two border fences in San Ysidro was a tragedy predicted by activists. They have long been alarmed — with good cause — by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s callous disinterest in the well-being of migrants waiting to be processed to enter the United States. This spring, they documented how the open-air pre-processing area violates the agency’s “national standards on how it should interact with people under its custody” and provide necessities of life. This helped lead to the closure of the camp, but it sprang up again in September after a new surge of migrants — and the previous problems re-emerged.
But does CBP care? Does Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Cuba-born lawyer who went to high school in Los Angeles and college at UC Berkeley and was hailed “for the moral com he would bring to U.S. immigration enforcement”? Does President Joe Biden, who campaigned in 2020 on a pledge to end the cruelty of Trump istration border policies? There’s no evidence of the slightest concern from any of these parties. Since Oct. 11, observers say nothing has changed in how migrants are treated, as documented by a KPBS report on Monday. If it weren’t for nonprofit organizations supplying food, water, clothes and medical aid to migrants, it’s possible the camp would emerge as a humanitarian disaster — not just another example of how the federal government is mishandling key border responsibilities.
Defenders of Customs and Border Protection will no doubt say that any of its shortcomings are because it is stretched thin. On Thursday, Troy Miller, the agency’s acting commissioner, indirectly made the case for this argument during a visit to the San Ysidro Port of Entry in which he touted a new government-wide strategy against the deadly national fentanyl epidemic. A long list of federal agencies are now working together to reduce fentanyl supplies by going after chemicals, machinery and other materials used to make it and other synthetic drugs smuggled into the U.S. This sounds like a potentially effective way to take on a scourge that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
But it is possible to acknowledge that CBP has many important responsibilities, including fighting fentanyl, while also expecting the agency to competently handle those responsibilities that may be more of a concern to San Diegans than to the rest of the nation. That goes beyond the treatment of migrants. The chronic shortage of federal resources needed to end interminable waits at border crossings affects many thousands of well-meaning, responsible people every day — and now they must dread the prospect that their ordeals may get worse as the holidays near.
There’s also a larger group of Americans who still hold out hope that under the Biden istration, Customs and Border Protection officials can become more predictable, willing to follow rules and easier to work with. Instead, they just witnessed one more reminder that some at the agency have an agenda that’s at odds with those who see the binational border region as an economic and cultural powerhouse that serves America well.
This came in the form of an inflammatory flyer allegedly originating from Customs and Border Protection’s San Diego office that was seen in recent days by millions on social media and then regurgitated by news outlets. It warned that “Hamas and Hezbollah militants” may be seeking to enter the U.S. along the Southwest border. Agency officials disavowed the flyer on Tuesday. But what gave the fake document particular credibility? ABC News — which relied on corroboration from unidentified CBP sources in reporting Monday the flyer was real.
It is possible that this was just sloppy reporting by journalists excited by an apparent scoop. But there’s also a strong chance that it was one more display of bad faith by CBP officials who don’t think there is any chance that they will be held able — especially by this istration.
