first_published_at,last_published_at,title,slug,latest_revision_created_at,charges,legal_orders,updates,categories,links,equipment_seized,equipment_broken,targeted_journalists,authors,date,exact_date_unknown,city,state,latitude,longitude,body,introduction,teaser,teaser_image,primary_video,image_caption,arrest_status,arresting_authority,release_date,detention_date,unnecessary_use_of_force,case_number,case_statuses,case_type,status_of_seized_equipment,is_search_warrant_obtained,actor,border_point,target_us_citizenship_status,denial_of_entry,stopped_previously,did_authorities_ask_for_device_access,did_authorities_ask_about_work,assailant,was_journalist_targeted,charged_under_espionage_act,subpoena_type,subpoena_statuses,name_of_business,third_party_business,legal_order_target,legal_order_type,legal_order_venue,status_of_prior_restraint,mistakenly_released_materials,type_of_denial,targeted_institutions,tags,target_nationality,workers_whose_communications_were_obtained,politicians_or_public_figures_involved 2019-03-12 21:19:59.987587+00:00,2023-07-26 20:17:57.815570+00:00,Journalist denied entry into Mexico found on government’s secret database,https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/journalist-denied-entry-mexico-found-governments-secret-database/,2023-07-26 20:17:57.679502+00:00,,,"(2019-11-20 00:00:00+00:00) Journalist sues DHS, agencies after being found on government’s secret database",Border Stop,,,,Kitra Cahana (Freelance),,2019-01-17,False,Montreal,Canada,None,None,"
Freelance photojournalist Kitra Cahana had an alert placed on her passport and was entered into a database authorized by the U.S. government, which collected information about her and other journalists. Cahana was ultimately denied entry into Mexico multiple times.
Cahana was one of many journalists covering the Central American migrant caravan’s arrival to Mexico. While traveling from Canada to Mexico City on Jan. 17, 2019, Cahana was pulled aside at U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance in Montreal due to a “flag” on her passport, she said.
According to a lawsuit in which Cahana is a plaintiff, officers questioned Cahana about her work, how it was funded, whether she was covering the caravan on assignment and how she obtained assignments. After approximately 10 minutes, she was allowed to board her flight, but upon arrival was pulled aside again due to the alert on her passport — this time, by Mexican authorities, who Cahana said separated her from her phone.
According to the lawsuit, Cahana repeatedly asked the officers why she was being held and if it was because she is a journalist. An officer responded that she was being held because of a flag with Interpol by U.S. authorities.
She was ultimately denied entry to Mexico and was forced to return to Detroit; upon landing, she was once again flagged for secondary screening.
On March 6, NBC 7 in San Diego broke the story that Department of Homeland Security officials in San Diego had created a database of journalists, activists and attorneys who were involved in some way with the migrant caravan. The anonymous whistleblower who brought the documents to NBC 7 told the news outlet that the DHS had created dossiers on each individual in the database.
“We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the anonymous source said. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
DHS confirmed to NBC 7 that the seal on the documents indicates that “the documents are a product of the International Liaison Unit (ILU), which coordinates intelligence between Mexico and the United States.”
“In the current state of journalism, it's really freelancers who are bringing so much news to the public,” Cahana told NBC 7. “And the uncertainty of having an alert placed on your passport and not knowing where and when that's going to prevent you from doing your work is really problematic.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented other journalists covering the migrant caravan who were targeted by U.S. authorities for additional border screening measures. Some, including Go Nakamura and Ariana Drehsler, are listed in the database.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated with information detailed in a lawsuit Kitra Cahana filed in November 2019.
Photojournalist John Rudoff was stopped for secondary screening at U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 28, 2017, while en route from Bangladesh.
Rudoff told the Committee to Protect Journalists that ever since he took multiple trips to Greece following the refugee crisis and traveled to Cuba, he has been stopped for secondary screening when reentering the U.S. He said the screenings happen whether he is traveling alone or with family.
Rudoff said he was traveling light in December 2017, but was carrying all of his photography gear with him. After passing through preclearance screening, Rudoff was taken aside to a waiting area to wait for his name to be called. Rudoff said he seemed to be the only U.S. citizen directed there.
When his turn came up, officers went through his bags and patted him down. Rudoff told CPJ that the pat down was not irregular, as his hip replacement sets of alarms on many airport security systems.
Rudoff said that the officer searching his bags did not go through his cellphone or laptop, which he keeps encrypted and powered down when he travels. Officers did ask him to turn his two cameras on and off, Rudoff added, but did not ask him to go through the photos and did not go through the photos themselves.
The screenings, Rudoff said, were frequent enough that he learned to plan ahead for them. “And it’s obviously targeted, but it’s so predictable that I just factor it in.”
Rudoff told CPJ that none of the CBP officers who have searched him in secondary screening have offered an explanation as to why he is so often flagged for additional searches. “I have no choice, at least so far,” Rudoff said.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker includes incidents only from 2017 forward.
Zainab Merchant, a graduate student at Harvard University and founder of the online publication Zainab Rights, was subjected to secondary screening and her devices searched by Customs and Border Protection officers at preclearance in Toronto, Canada, on March 5, 2017.
Merchant is one of 11 plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Massachusetts. According to the legal complaint, filed in Sept. 2017, Merchant was returning to the U.S. after visiting her uncle in Toronto. When CBP officers directed her to secondary inspection, they took her laptop and and ordered her to turn over her smartphone.
Merchant objected, in part because her phone contained pictures of her without her headscarf that she did not want the male officers to see, but also because it contained information and communications related to her blog. According to the complaint, a CBP officer told her that her phone would be seized indefinitely if she did not comply.
“In tears, Ms. Merchant unlocked her phone. She also provided the password to unlock her laptop,” the complaint added.
During the hour and a half that Merchant’s electronic devices were out of her sight, CBP officers thoroughly searcher her bags, read her graduate school notebooks and questioned her about her religious affiliation and her blog. Officers specifically asked about an article she had written for Zainab Rights describing her experience at the border in 2016 which was critical of CBP’s actions.
Merchant spent approximately two hours in the inspection area before she was permitted to leave for the boarding area. When her devices were returned, her Facebook app was open to her friends list, which was not the case when she turned over her phone.
According to a separate complaint the organizations filed with DHS on Merchant’s behalf in 2018, when she arrived at the boarding gate, she underwent another pat-down.
The complaint states that Merchant was also subjected to additional screening when she landed in Newark, New Jersey for her connecting flight. The Transportation Security Administration officer checking Merchant’s boarding pass told her she would need to pass through security again, a process which took an hour and caused her to miss her flight.
In a 2018 opinion article in The Washington Post, Merchant outlined how she was detained for secondary screenings multiple times in the previous two year period, including one in 2016 that involved her husband and then-6-month-old baby for six hours. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker includes incidents only from 2017 forward.
In the Post, Merchant said that as the stops continued she filed a complaint through DHS’s Travel Redress Inquiry Program, wrote to members of Congress and applied for TSA Precheck and CBP Global Entry, programs designed to expedite domestic and international travel. She said her efforts were to no avail.
“Am I being stopped because I am Muslim, or because my family once traveled to Iran to visit a holy shrine? Is it because of my criticism of U.S. policies on the multimedia website I run to raise awareness about injustices around the world? Maybe it’s all three,” Merchant wrote. “Federal officers have asked me about my writing and religion, both of which are protected by the First Amendment.”
Merchant did not respond to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s requests for comment.