Here’s just one more reason why the Trump administration’s inhumane and illegal policy forcing vulnerable families to wait out their asylum cases in Mexico has been “a dangerous, chaotic mess”: Border Patrol agents have reportedly listed asylum-seekers’ street addresses as “Facebook” on government forms critical to their cases.
Agents are required to list a physical address, but a Honduran asylum-seeker identified as Gutierrez said an agent listed his information as “Facebook” on what’s called a Notice to Appear, an important document that tells families their court dates, and just as importantly, where to be contacted should their court dates change. If an asylum-seeker misses his or her hearing, he or she can lose the case.
Gurtierrez said the agent told him Facebook was how “we're going to send you information about your court case,” but BuzzFeed News reports “it's unclear how [Homeland Security] officials would contact an immigrant via social media.” It’s clear, however, this hasn’t been an isolated incident whatsoever.
“Attorneys and advocates working with asylum-seekers at the border, including those forced to wait in Mexico under the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) said they've seen other notices with ‘Facebook’ addresses, or no address at all.” The Los Angeles Times reported in August that other officers had written “known address,” or something close to that, instead of the required address.
Zoe Bowman, a law student who worked with immigrant rights advocacy group Al Otro Lado, said she saw several with “Facebook” listed as an address. "Some wouldn't have any addresses listed at all." Calling it “procedurally incorrect,” Leidy Perez-Davis of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said it was “the most egregious example of the Department of Homeland Security doing away with the aspect of proper notice. Facebook is not an adequate way to serve an NTA."
Agents maliciously working against vulnerable people may see their attempts backfire, though: “If an immigrant receives an improperly addressed notice to appear, they can challenge whether it was legally serviced in court.” That is, if they’re even able to survive kidnapping and other violence to then show up at the kangaroo “tent court” along the border, where they plead their case to a judge via video feed. "It's ridiculous to call these tents a court," said the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Ashley Huebner.