- In September 2020, the Immigration Court recorded 1,133 new MPP cases, up from a low of 136 in May, and the highest since the start of the pandemic in March when 2,282 MPP cases were filed.
A chronology of events related to U.S. border governance and migration
October 20, 2020
- Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing from the American Civil Liberties Union.
October 19, 2020
- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide the legality of one of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies that has forced tens of thousands of migrants along the southern border to wait in Mexico, rather than entering the United States, while their asylum claims are processed.
October 14, 2020
- The number of migrants that U.S. border agents took into custody rose to a 13-month high in September, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures published today that belie President Trump’s attempts to tout his enforcement record on the campaign trail.
October 14, 2020
- Department of Homeland Security employees were told to report colleagues they suspected of sharing sensitive internal information, along with those who requested information that fell out of their day-to-day duties, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.
October 14, 2020
- With migrant deaths approaching levels not seen in years, humanitarian aid volunteers in southern Arizona say that the U.S. Border Patrol is using Covid-19 as a pretext to quietly dump large numbers of immigrants in Sasabe, one of the most remote and potentially dangerous communities in the Sonoran Desert, overwhelming the town’s limited immigration resources and placing individuals at significant risk of being targeted by organized criminal groups.
October 13, 2020
- The Trump administration must face allegations by a Texas butterfly sanctuary abutting the U.S.-Mexico border that challenges on constitutional grounds the federal government’s plans to build a wall to thwart illegal border crossings, a federal appeals court said on Tuesday.
October 13, 2020
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott released a joint statement denying claims that Border Patrol agents intentionally an undocumented mother from her newly born born child and claiming that “these agents also did everything in their control to keep them together despite the difficult circumstances and health restrictions related to the pandemic.”
October 12, 2020
- A group of Native demonstrators said they were “violently attacked” by Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers who used “rubber bullets and tear gas” to break up a protest at the Border Patrol checkpoint west of Tucson on Monday morning, arresting 12 people.
October 12, 2020
- The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last night ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to divert $3.6 billion in military construction funds for the border wall is unlawful. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Sierra Club v. Trump, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition challenging President Trump’s abuse of emergency powers to build a border wall using funds Congress explicitly denied. Although the district court previously stayed its own injunction blocking these sections of wall, the court of appeals order lifts that stay and requires that construction cease immediately.
October 6, 2020
- The Trump administration is considering painting more than 80 miles of border wall black in Texas, according to US Customs and Border Protection officials, a move in line with President Donald Trump’s push to paint barriers that could cost tens of millions of dollars extra.
October 6, 2020
- Activists and allies of two O’odham groups protesting the construction of a border wall along ancestral tribal lands in southern Arizona temporarily blocked the highway leading to construction sites in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
October 4, 2020
- Nearly 4,000 Border Patrol agents will be given body-worn cameras over the next year as part of $13 million contract with Scottsdale-based Axon Enterprises, the company announced this week. The cameras will be deployed at 17 locations along the U.S.-Mexico border, including the Tucson Sector, over the next year, Axon said.
October 4, 2020
- An appeals court refused Sunday to allow the Trump administration to resume detaining immigrant children in hotel rooms before expelling them under rules adopted during the coronavirus pandemic. Three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals left in place a lower court’s order that requires the U.S. to stop using hotels in most situations to detain children unaccompanied by a parent. The judges denied the U.S. government’s request for a stay of that order.
October 1, 2020
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has awarded two contracts to construct approximately 40 miles of contiguous new border wall system within U.S. Border Patrol’s (USBP) Laredo Sector located in Webb County, Texas. Construction will occur where no barriers currently exist.
September 30, 2020
- Chad Wolf’s nomination to be Homeland Security secretary moved ahead Wednesday, following a party-line vote by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
September 30, 2020
- President Trump’s administration is racing to build his border wall as quickly as possible ahead of the Nov. 3 election, with construction crews now adding nearly two miles per day. The latest figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show the rate of construction has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year, accelerated by the government’s ability to cut through national forests, wildlife preserves and other public lands already under federal control.
September 30, 2020
- The National Park Service cited public safety concerns for its decision this week to prohibit access to a sacred Tohono O’odham site, a move that comes amid rising tensions between border wall protestors and federal agents. The order comes a week after protestors and federal agents clashed during a demonstration at the site of border wall construction through Organ Pipe. News reports said armed agents tried to relocate protestors after repeatedly telling them it was not safe and they had to leave the site.
September 29, 2020
- Artists unveiled a new, 50-foot-tall, two-sided mural in Chicano Park that honors the memory of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas and other immigrants who have died crossing the border or while in border agents’ custody.
September 27, 2020
- O’odham people from both sides of the border met Sunday morning to exchange blessings through an opening in the international boundary that won’t be open much longer. As federal officers watched from their vehicles about a quarter of a mile away, the two groups talked and prayed on the spot where the new border barrier is set to be built near the desert oasis of Quitobaquito Springs.