After years of pressure, new Border Patrol policy protects essential items like medicine, IDs, legal documents

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is implementing a new policy meant to safeguard the personal belongings of people seeking asylum in the U.S. in response to ongoing reports of Border Patrol agents tossing religious items, essential medicine and legal documents.

The issue has been going on for years. In 2022, Arizona Luminaria reported on Border Patrol agents in Yuma throwing out Sikh turbans — a traditional and sacred clothing item for Sikhs — as well as other religious and personal items.

The new border patrol directive , issued Aug. 16, designates a wider range of items as “essential,” including medicine, IDs, legal documents, items of religious significance, as well as money, phones, clothing, and objects of significant personal or sentimental value. The essential designation is supposed to prompt Border Patrol agents to safeguard and return the items.

Certain items must also now remain with migrants even while they’re in Border Patrol custody, as long as they don’t pose a safety or security risk, according to the new guidelines. Those items include religious head coverings, which has long been a point of contention among migrants, activists and the Border Patrol.

Overall, the new guidelines are meant to set clearer and more rigorous standards about the handling and return of essential, valuable, or meaningful personal objects.

“CBP remains committed to handling, retaining, retrieving, and returning each detainee’s personal property in a secure, efficient, and transparent manner,” the new directive reads .

Noah Schramm, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona’s border policy strategist, said that it’s “not a flawless policy, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Years of mishandling

In February, the ACLU, along with Arizona-based ProtectAZ Health and The Kino Border Initiative released a report saying the Border Patrol “systematically fails to ensure humane treatment of migrants and their belongings.”

From 2022 to 2023, those Arizona organizations working with migrants documented about 1,000 cases of Border Patrol taking away people’s personal belongings, according to the report.

In some cases, migrants being deprived of medication has sent them to the hospital and, in at least one case, resulted in a death .

In April, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the Border Patrol’s guidelines about personal property were unclear and that different field locations implemented them differently.

“Border Patrol headquarters does not consistently monitor sectors’ implementation of guidance regarding the handling of personal property, making it difficult for headquarters to have insight into sectors’ practices for handling property,” according to the GAO report.

Schramm reiterated that there has been “enormous inconsistency across Border Patrol sectors” when it comes to property retention and return. “It has been very sloppy,” Schramm said.

“One of the overarching points of this directive is to establish a baseline standard for all field locations to work from,” he said.

It’s too early to say what impact this directive will have, he added.

According to an emailed statement from a CBP spokesperson, the new guidelines will “allow detainees to keep as much of their personal property as their short-term holding facility’s physical and personnel capacity, safety considerations, and transportation limitations allow, while ensuring compliance with the law.”

Ongoing concerns

Language in the new directive clearly requires field locations to store certain types of property. However, there isn’t a clear requirement that stored property be returned, Schramm said.

That may be particularly problematic in Arizona, especially the Yuma sector, as the overwhelming majority of migrants there do not remain in Yuma. Rather, they move on to different parts of the state or country.

The biggest concern, Schramm said, is around the flexibility built into the directive about capacity, as well as loopholes around which different Border Patrol stations can say they don’t have enough space or personnel to comply.

“Based on past experience, we are very worried that Border Patrol will abuse that language,” Schramm said.

Schramm said the Border Patrol has informed the ACLU that they will be issuing yet further guidance, specifically around religious items, that should be made public sometime this year.

He also said there are deeper underlying issues.

“We can have a perfect policy,” Schramm said, “but Border Patrol must also do something to address the deeper concerns to how they perceive and treat people in their custody.”

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