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Ari Sawyer Profile picture
Ari Sawyer
@AriMSawyer
US Border Researcher at Human Rights Watch (@HRW). Investigadorx de frontera. Abolitionist. They/Them/Elle. 🏳️‍⚧️
Jun 25 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
So proud to release this beautiful and devastating project in collaboration with the @colibricenter.

For 30 years, US border policies have killed and led to the disappearance of tens of thousands of mostly Indigenous, Brown, and Black people.

It's time for a new approach. The US should respect the right to life, the right to self-determination, and the acknowledge the right to MOVE. It should publicly apologize to the families who have lost loved ones as the result of its deterrence policies and immediately invest in life-saving measures.
Feb 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Drug trafficking and migration are intricately connected, but not in the way US politicians make it sound. The US demand for drugs funds and empowers the criminal organizations that make life unsafe for people in the region, playing a huge role in driving migration. 1/ The US government's response to the opioid crisis using police and punishment and futile attempts to stop the supply by militarizing the border in turn plays a massive role in driving abuses at the border. The US has a drug problem. US citizens smuggle, buy and consume drugs.
Feb 8, 2023 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
Biden has failed to follow through on his promise to create a humane and rights-respecting border. Instead, he has continued to use and expanded Trump policies, leading to record numbers of dead at the border. Watch @POTUS give the State of the Union here: c-span.org/video/?525522-… @POTUS I'll be live tweeting with an eye on immigration and policing. In an earlier hearing, politicians falsely linked migrants with drugs and violence. They continued to call for abusive border policies. Will Biden be any different?
Feb 7, 2023 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Watching today: House Committee Hearing "On The Front Lines of the Border Crisis: A Hearing with Chief Patrol Agents"
I'll leave the very excellent live coverage to @ReichlinMelnick. This thread is about the bigger picture. Why are we having this conversation in the first place? Who is really in crisis at the southern border? What drives smuggling, deaths and kidnappings?
Mar 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The DR is building a border wall between itself and Haiti. Securitized borders there are an import from the US Border Patrol, part of an initiative to "fight terror." In truth, it is another effort to externalize migration, to force refugees to stay in their countries of abuse 1/ Context: Haiti is in the midst of a political uprising and pandemic. Despite both of these facts, the US has continued to deport and illegally expel (with no screening for fear of return) Haitian nationals, including children. It continued to do so during #BlackHistoryMonth. 2/
Jan 25, 2021 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
A horrifying report from the Government Office of Accountability (@USGAO) on two secretive and abusive DHS programs at the US-Mexico border. Before the analysis, a reminder that neither @POTUS nor DHS secretary nominee @AliMayorkas have agreed to end them. gao.gov/assets/720/711… Very troubling to see the stunning lack of context on the length and conditions of detention from @USGAO. @CBP held asylum seekers in unsanitary, punitive conditions well beyond the 72-hour limit. GAO also takes for granted certain false or misleading assertions by DHS.
Sep 22, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Some things to keep in mind ahead of @DHS_Wolf's nomination hearing tomorrow before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:
1) Wolf helped create Family Separation
2) He was previously caught blatantly lying about that fact to this very same committee 1/ 3) As I type this, and as he likely tries to explain away that torturous policy inflicted on vulnerable families in need of protection, he is overseeing Family Separation 2.0. He is *doing it again.* Plus, hundreds of families remain separated from the initial version. 2/
May 12, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The @DHSgov justification for turning away asylum seekers at the US-MX border is ludicrous. First of all, asylum seekers do not "need" to be held in congregate settings, and in fact should generally not be detained, per international law the US has signed. foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/1… That goes especially for the unaccompanied children border agents have been expelling with no screening for fear of return to their country of origin or due process. More than 90 percent of asylum seekers have family or friends in the US with whom they could shelter in place.
Mar 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I have been sick for 9 days now. I’m still waiting on the test results but am currently presumed positive for #COVIDー19. I cannot imagine dealing with this while living in one of the makeshift camps or shelters along the border, and I don’t even have much respiratory distress. The US must end MPP and immediately parole asylum seekers into the US so they can be #SafeandTogether with their families.
Mar 16, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
The MPP program forced thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, where @hrw and others have documented not only a grave risk of violence but a serious lack of access to resources, including healthcare. #COVID19 could be deadly. 1/ The Trump administration has wisely decided to begin shutting down and postponing immigration court for migrants who are not detained (non-detained). This allows people to stay home and work toward #flatteningthecurve. So why did people in MPP have to go to court today?
Mar 9, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"Today women in Mexico have decided to strike and to absent themselves from work, from school, from public space, and even from social media as a form of protest against a reality that is more and more unbearable - deadly violence against women." #NiUnaMas #UnDiaSinMujeres
Feb 19, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The Trump admin’s Asylum Cooperative Agreement is a terrifying disaster for the vulnerable men, women, and children asylum seekers who have been sent to Guatemala. This isn’t the half of it The program has to end immediately. The ACA is not protecting people, it’s hurting them. That same psychologist also told me that the ACA and mistreatment by @CBP is especially hard on children - that it has caused an interruption in their development and that they are showing signs of aggression and stress, which is in turn causing physical health issues.
Feb 15, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
So what does this look like in practice for the actual human beings - families, children, traumatized ppl - who’ve been subjected to this evil policy? By the time they get to the shelter, it’s usually 8-9 p.m. They’re exhausted, hungry, confused, have been denied showers by @CBP Half of them didn’t know they were being sent to Guatemala in the first place. These asylum seekers who came to the US seeking protection and who should have been treated w/dignity are shackled and handcuffed and put on a plane w/zero explanation of what’s in store for them.
Feb 13, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Day 1: I learned that @DHSgov and @CBP are sending LGBT people seeking asylum in the US to Guatemala, a country from which LGBT people flee, under the Asylum Cooperative Agreement. It is not safe for LGBT ppl here -they experience violence, discrimination. hrw.org/news/2018/08/3… Folks are arriving sleep-deprived, hungry, confused, and about half the time, have no idea they’re being sent to Guatemala. One gay asylum seeker was already attacked here. As seen in the news from @Haleaziz: google.com/amp/s/www.buzz…
Feb 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Systemic failures outside of their control? I don’t think so, @RSScott_BP252. Setting aside the problematic assertion that agents can justify human rights abuses with the failed old “just doing my job” defense, @CBP agents went out of their way to abuse asylum seekers. Asylum seekers have complained to me again and again about agents who verbally assaulted them *and their little children,* woke them up in the middle of the night shouting at them to sign forms without translation, performed illegal turnbacks at the border, served spoiled food.
Feb 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 7 min read
Not only does @CBP violate the law by returning asylum seekers to almost certain persecution, but it violates even its own policies set by @DHSgov meant to provide even a bare minimum of protection. @clarychka, @espinosa_rios and I at @hrw have repeatedly documented such cases. @CBP @DHSgov @clarychka @espinosa_rios @hrw Here's more from @espinosa_rios on what asylum seekers with disabilities and health conditions forced by @DHSgov to wait in Mexican border cities face there, none of which would be possible without the collaboration of MX's @lopezobrador_ administration. hrw.org/news/2019/10/2…
Jan 24, 2020 • 7 tweets • 8 min read
1/ As Mexican soldiers and immigration authorities were detaining asylum seekers, @INAMI_mx abruptly denied access to human rights groups who perform detention monitoring there. The lack of transparency given what @hrw and others have learned about conditions inside is alarming. @INAMI_mx @hrw 2/ According to @CDHFrayMatias, the Siglo XXI detention center in Tapachula, Mexico, has been particularly problematic when it comes rights violations. Those findings are consistent with what @hrw documented in November. Their access was also revoked.
Dec 20, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I know a dad and 4-year-old child who no one seems likely to represent because he’s ex-MS and thus unlikely to win. It sucks because they took him when he was just a little kid, but by the time he was 21, and they’d shot his wife, he wanted out. 1/ The thing is, he willingly left and worked with the state to prosecute MS members. He subsequently had to flee for his life and for the life of his kid (who is incredibly cute omg). They were placed into MPP. He knows he’s pretty screwed, but he’s still hoping. 2/
Dec 11, 2019 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Just finished talking to a family with small children who were kidnapped by armed men almost immediately after being placed in the #MPP program and sent by @CBP to Nuevo Laredo. They have given up on their asylum claim in the US. This is their story: 1/ The family fled political persecution in their home country and came to the US border to ask for asylum. They were held for several days in one of CBP’s notorious freezing cold cells where they had to sleep on the floor with only thin aluminum blankets. They huddled for warmth 2/
Dec 7, 2019 • 7 tweets • 8 min read
I retweeted a story on the death of 16-year-old Carlos Hernandez in @CBP custody. I'm deleting the tweet to avoid further trauma to the boy's family, who are understandably devastated. Imo, even if reporters did clear it with them first, they have a right to be hurt anyway. @CBP I think people need to know his story. I think they should read the article and call their lawmakers and demand justice. I'm copying some of my original tweets from the thread below. Please don't share the video, as that is his family's wish.
Dec 4, 2019 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Nevertheless, Mexican asylum seekers are regularly turned away by @CBP - a practice that is illegal under US and international law. I have personally witnessed such turnbacks. In one recent case, agents looked on as Mexican government employees discouraged access to the port of entry. One of those employees had earlier taken me aside to quietly ask if my colleagues and I could do anything to help one young man present himself for asylum.