“This is an Order from Trump”

US President Donald Trump

A new report from Refugees International and Human Rights First reveals systemic and grave human rights abuses by the Trump administration against asylum seekers in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. 

In its first few months, the Trump administration has used a pattern of enforced disappearances to detain, remove, and expel countless asylum seekers, without any assessment of their asylum claims, in stark violation of U.S. law and international legal obligations. This includes people who reported fleeing persecution by the government due to their political opinion, religious persecution, anti-LGBTQ attacks, sexual violence, the murders of family members, death threats, and other harms. U.S. immigration officials detained many in abusive and inhumane conditions at the border, denied them legally required fear screenings, and refouled (returned) them to potential persecution in their home countries or unlawfully transferred them to third countries where they were subjected to human rights violations. Prior to being expelled or removed, some were pressured or forced to sign documents that in some cases they could not even see because they were shown a blank signature line on a screen. Some have family members, including spouses and children, living in the United States with pending asylum cases from whom they have now been separated. 

The administration’s actions, in each of these cases, violated laws enacted by Congress to safeguard due process and provide for the fair adjudication of people’s requests for protection from persecution. The enforced disappearances of people seeking U.S. protection is part of a broader Trump administration effort to subvert and avoid due process and the checks and balances that are central to the U.S. Constitution. These accounts also starkly lay bare the multiple cruelties inflicted on migrants and people who seek protection from persecution, both in U.S. border custody and after their unlawful transfers to third countries. 

Instead of protecting these families and adults from political, religious, and other persecution as required by U.S. and international law, U.S. officials whisked them away in an attempt to place them beyond U.S. law and courts, in some cases returned them to their countries of feared persecution and in other cases sent them to third countries where they were subjected to arbitrary detention. Like the Trump administration’s decision to send other asylum seekers and immigrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison, these are dehumanizing tactics routinely employed by repressive and autocratic regimes, rather than a country governed by the U.S. Constitution that should be a champion of human rights and the rule-based order.

Key Findings

• Many asylum seekers detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the southern border who our researchers spoke with went days or weeks without the ability to make a phone call or have any contact with the outside world, including with family and legal counsel. Some asylum seekers reported that they could not make a single call the entire time they were in CBP custody.

• In CBP custody, immigration officers subjected asylum seekers to medical neglect, physical and psychological mistreatment, and unbearable living conditions that are especially traumatizing for children. Some children were detained separately from one or both parents for days or weeks at a time, were hungry and cold, lacked toys to play with, and/or went over a month barely seeing the sun.

• The U.S. government has unlawfully removed and expelled to the countries they fled or to third countries – without a legally required fear screening – families and adults fleeing Afghanistan, Armenia, Ghana, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and other countries, subjecting people to potential persecution via refoulement or chain refoulement, and violating U.S. and international refugee law. This has separated families indefinitely, including parents separated from minor children in the United States with no path to reunite. The administration’s removal and expulsion of nearly 500 migrants in February 2025 to Costa Rica and Panama led to further violations of their rights.

• While the administration is, in some instances, providing very limited screenings to asylum seekers about their fear of torture, the government routinely ignores and removes without any screening asylum seekers who directly communicate with immigration officers regarding their fear of return, and even where provided, these torture screenings are a farce by design.

Policy Recommendations:

We urge the U.S. administration to: 

• Restore access to asylum at the southern border as required by U.S. law, refer those fearing persecution or torture to statutorily required fear screenings, and allow those wrongfully removed, expelled, and disappeared to third countries or home countries to return and seek asylum in the United States and/or protection from removal to a third country.

• Immediately cease the transfer of asylum seekers and migrants to third countries in violation of U.S. and international law.

• Ensure compliance with limits on time in CBP custody and detention standards as well as conditions of the Flores settlement agreement concerning children. Appropriately fund and staff relevant Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight agencies, including the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, Office of the Inspector General, and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to ensure compliance and swift investigation of reported abuses.

• Ensure timely and publicly accessible information on the whereabouts of migrants detained in DHS custody, migrants’ access to reasonable in-person and telephonic communication with family and counsel, outcomes of credible fear screenings and torture screenings, and facilitate access to legal counsel of their choosing.

We urge the U.S. Congress to:

• Exercise oversight of past and future agreements between the United States and other countries that involve the removal, expulsion, transfer, or disappearance of migrants and asylum seekers in violation of U.S. and international law, including any use of U.S. funds to effectively refoule migrants to places where they are at risk of persecution, torture, enforced disappearances, and other grave human rights violations.

• Conduct oversight of CBP detention facilities, conditions, medical access, separation of families, and treatment of migrants by DHS officers and contractors in compliance with relevant standards, and ensure funding is contingent on compliance.

• Investigate access to asylum and referral to and outcomes of fear screenings for individuals in CBP custody, including relevant public reporting by USCIS on credible fear screenings and torture screenings conducted.