This article originally published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
When Cuban police escorted Serafín Morán Santiago on to a plane to Guyana in 2016, they warned the journalist he could be jailed for 15 years if he tried to return. Authorities there had already detained and tortured him for his reporting. But when he was attacked in Guyana and then threatened in Mexico, Morán said he had no option but to seek asylum elsewhere.
In April, he traveled to south Texas where, despite passing a “credible fear” interview to prove that he was at serious risk if deported, the U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) ordered him held at an ICE detention facility until his asylum application had been approved. “[The border agent] said it was to protect me for [one] day, but this day turned into nearly seven months,” Morán told CPJ.
Morán is one of at least seven journalists seeking asylum in the U.S, whose cases CPJ has documented or assisted with in the past 18 months. All of them fled their home countries after receiving threats for their work, and have been detained for long periods by ICE. While none of these, including two still held in ICE centers, figure on CPJ’s annual count of journalists imprisoned directly in relation to their work, their stories demonstrate how journalists forced into exile can encounter a host of new challenges, including being detained in a U.S. immigration center.
The journalists, who were held for between two and seven months, are among the hundreds of thousands affected by President Trump’s policies toward asylum seekers and migrants. The impact of the policies goes beyond the U.S. border. Journalists who are not U.S. citizens previously told CPJ they fear being singled out or arrested due to racial profiling. CPJ is aware of at least one case of a journalist being handed over to ICE after his arrest while covering a protest.
According to a legal challenge led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of the Trump administration’s arbitrary detention of asylum seekers, parole rates have fallen at major ports of entry in the U.S., and individuals who would otherwise have been released while their applications were reviewed are instead being held, sometimes for months. The change falls in line with a memo released in February 2017, in which then-Director of Homeland Security John Kelly said parole should be granted “sparingly.”