U.S. Citizens Placed on Watch List While Taking Part in Caravan Through Mexico
From MSN News:
The pastor of a historic New York church is asking a federal court to sanction immigration officials, arguing that they offered “false or at best misleading” accounts in response to a lawsuit and put her at risk of arrest in Mexico under false pretenses as she aided asylum seekers.
“They consistently lied or hid information,” the Rev. Kaji Douša, a United Church of Christ minister and pastor of Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan, told Religion News Service in an interview.
Douša, a veteran immigrant rights activist, previously served as the chair of the New York City-based New Sanctuary Coalition. As part of her work in January 2019, she participated in a 40-day, faith-led “sanctuary caravan” to Tijuana, Mexico, near the U.S. border, where Central American asylum seekers were gathered. While crossing the border, Douša was detained and questioned for more than an hour by customs officials.
A few months later, NBC published leaked documents that suggested the federal government had built a database of more than 50 activists, journalists and lawyers for use by various agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Douša’s name and image appeared with a yellow “X” across her face in the database, just above an indication that her SENTRI pass, which allows for expedited screening along the border, had been revoked.
In July 2019, she filed a lawsuit against U.S. immigration officials claiming that putting her on a watch list and surveilling her violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and her First Amendment right to conduct her ministry, which included officiating at marriage ceremonies for migrants at the border.
Activists making ‘water drops’ for migrants near border say government intimidation is rising
Her legal team’s latest claim, filed Dec. 8, points to a recent internal report from the Department of Homeland Security that details how a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official emailed Mexican authorities in December 2018, asking them to bar at least 14 U.S. citizens from entering the country, saying they “lack[ed] the proper documentation to be in Mexico.”
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