Thread by @immcouncil

WATCH: Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was asked if @CBP was limiting the capacity to process asylum seekers in front of Congress in December 2018.

She lied.

She denied the agency had made changes to limit capacity. New reports show the agency was doing the opposite.

This revelation was exposed in an @DHSOIG report—but it wasn’t the only alarming find. Here are the other incredibly disturbing conclusions about @CBP’s actions.

buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfo…

CBP officials lied to asylum seekers and others to turn them back to Mexico without processing their claims.

Officials would tell them the port of entry was at capacity and did not have the capability to process them, regardless of actual capacity and capability at the time.

CBP officers at four different ports of entry turned back to Mexico asylum seekers who were already in the United States—even though U.S. law and DHS guidance specifically forbid this.

CBP officers left holding space at two different ports empty while there were lines of asylum seekers and others waiting in Mexico to be processed.

CBP declined to follow OIG’s guidance to continue processing asylum seekers and others at ports where CBP outright stopped processing all asylum seekers without following proper procedure.

Instead, they would send them (through Mexico) to other ports—sometimes 30+ miles away.

This OIG report confirms many of the arguments the Council and its partners @AlOtroLado_Org, @splcenter, @theCCR and Mayer Brown LLP have been making in a lawsuit filed in 2017 challenging the turning back of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

americanimmigrationcouncil.org/litigation/cha…