Border officials issue interim guidance following religious freedom abuses against Sikh migrants

Original Article
September 20, 2022
Gabe Ortiz

Since the alarming reports last month that U.S. border agents have repeatedly violated the religious freedom of Sikh migrants by seizing and refusing to return their religious headwear, Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) commissioner pledged that an investigation would be opened into the reported abuses.

Non-profit newsroom Arizona Luminaria, which broke the news of the seizures, now reports that border agents have received new interim guidance instructing them “to stop unnecessarily” seizing religious headwear. “The agency, however, has yet to make those temporary orders public in what faith and civil rights leaders say is a violation of CBP’s own policies to ensure greater oversight of the government agency,” the report said.

Arizona Luminaria reports that it reviewed portions of the interim guidance, which was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona and the Sikh Coalition. The guidance states “[m]igrants and property encountered in the field, to include turbans, will be searched by agents for officer safety … If the migrant is classified as ‘non-threat’ and no other risks factors are present (e.g., suicide risk) the turban will be returned to the migrant at the conclusion of the search.”

Arizona Luminaria reports that CBP’s own directive states that policy changes should be publicly released “unless they contain information that should not and/or cannot be released for personnel safety, privacy, or legal reasons.” But that doesn’t appear to be the situation here. The report said that when CBP was questioned about a new policy, a spokesperson repeated an “old statement” that “[t]his issue was raised in June and steps were immediately taken to address the situation.” 

In a tweet, Sikh Coalition called the reported guidance “a step forward,” but said “there is more work to be done.” Initial reporting said that agents had confiscated and refused to return turbans belonging to almost 50 Sikh migrants. But subsequent reporting said it could possibly be into the hundreds, and stretched beyond the Yuma sector into Tucson. The seizure of sacred headwear by border agents along the Tucson sector became so aggressive that a Casa Alitas volunteer bought a large quantity of fabric so that migrants who’d been processed and released by immigration officials and were now arriving for their intake appointments could try to replace the turbans stolen from them. 

Sim J. Singh Attariwala, senior policy and advocacy manager for the Sikh Coalition, told Arizona Luminaria that “individual officers must be held accountable for these egregious actions,” and that the coalition “looks forward to continued engagement with CBP leadership to develop policies that include more faith communities and remedy larger concerns of removing other personal property such as medical devices, important documentation, heirlooms, and other valuables.”

Lawmakers including Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, California Rep. Judy Chu, and Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva had said actions by border agents “constitute a violation of multiple Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies and federal laws that protect religious freedom and an individual’s personal property while under custody.”

“Unfortunately, the confiscation or forced disposal of individuals’ personal property, including religious items, is a long-standing issue that has become more prevalent over the past year,” they noted. The ACLU of Arizona said in an Aug. 1 letter that agents have actually been confiscating turbans as far back as 2019, but that the seizures jumped this past June. Even though border agents are supposed to return personal items to migrants, they oftentimes just trash them. Other religious items, like rosaries, have also been thrown away by agents.