After NBC News disclosed that 10 journalists’ names appeared on a secret federal list of border troublemakers, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called Monday on U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to provide an unclassified briefing on the operation by Thursday. The senators, who head the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, which oversees CBP, expressed particular concern about the press freedom issues at play, The Intercept reports. “Unless CBP had reason to believe the individuals in question were inciting violence or physical conflict, it is deeply concerning that CBP appears to have targeted American journalists at our borders,” they said.
In February, The Intercept published a report, based on 19 sources, revealing that U.S. and Mexican authorities worked together in a sprawling intelligence-gathering effort aimed at journalists, immigration lawyers, and migrant rights advocates in the Tijuana-San Diego area. Photojournalists on the ground described being approached by Mexican police who photographed their passports. When asked who they were taking those photos for, one of the police officers replied, “For the Americans.” The border dragnet was broad-based and binational. It involved each of the major agencies of the U.S. border security apparatus — Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Border Patrol — working with Mexican counterparts and the FBI, under the umbrella of the controversial joint DHS-Pentagon border initiative known as Operation Secure Line (formerly known as Operation Faithful Patriot), which the Trump administration initiated in the run-up to the 2018 midterms. Authorities compiled dossiers on journalists and advocates, and in some cases, restricted their ability to travel after multi-hour detentions in Mexico.