Border Agents’ Aggressive Tactics Against Black Organizer Raises Alarms About Dissent Suppression

Devin Springer’s recent detention and interrogation by U.S. Border Protection and Customs agents took a page out of an old playbook used to repress dissent and punish outspoken Black leaders. Last week, agents detained and interrogated Springer—a Black, queer, Muslim organizer and journalist known by friends and colleagues as Musa— upon their return from traveling to a sanctioned trip to Cuba. 

Springer shared details of their detention and interrogation by Customs and Border Protection agents in a statement posted on the Mondoweiss website, where they are a contributor. According to the statement, Springer was subjected to an aggressive search, which they estimated lasted longer than three hours without access to a lawyer. According to their statement, an agent informed Springer that upon returning home from international travel, “most of your rights are suspended.” 

“For roughly over three hours, I was held without access to legal counsel, aggressively questioned, patted down, and subjected to an invasive groin search,” they said. “My passport was taken, all of my belongings were searched, and eventually my devices—my cell phone and laptop—were seized without justification. After seizing my devices, three CBP agents attempted to coerce me into powering on the devices and surrendering my device passwords; when I refused, which I knew was my right to do, they were very visibly aggravated.”  

Springer further explained that agents used their travel to Cuba, on Southwest Airlines, and in accordance with the limited exceptions available to Americans, and solidarity organizing on behalf of Palestinian liberation as justification for the detention and aggressive questioning. Part of Springer’s advocacy has also included recent support of a friend who was an international student targeted by the Trump administration and forced to self-deport.

“CBP agents asked whether I had received so-called ‘military training’ in Cuba or the Middle East, questioned if I was involved in political activity on the island, and pressed me for information on my potential connections to several foreign students and professors engaged in Palestine solidarity,” Springer said. “This experience is part of a broader pattern. Across administrations, DHS has operated as a politically charged agency to escalate surveillance, harassment, and criminalization of individuals involved in movements for justice, liberation, and in this case, against genocide. Now, we’re witnessing a dangerous heightening of this weaponization.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing Springer, filed a motion in federal court demanding the government return the seized devices. The motion outlined the government’s retaliation against Springer’s constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment, including how agents reviewed Springer’s personal and professional research and writings, claiming to have “found something” on a page of a notebook. It further notes how the agents searched for Springer’s work online, making mention of abortion and Palestine, a possible reference to Springer’s work for a Georgia reproductive justice organization and their solidarity with the Palestinian people and movement for liberation.

Springer is the second U.S. citizen from Georgia to make the news this week. Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old Georgia man wrongfully detained by ICE in Florida despite being born in the U.S., was accused of being unlawfully present in the country despite his mother’s insistence that he was born here. Authorities detained Lopez-Gomez for 48 hours. 

Citizens and non-citizens are increasingly reporting incidents of detentions and seizures upon returning to the U.S. after traveling abroad. In a video posted to social media, an attorney from the Center for Constitutional Rights placed Springer’s incident in the context of other reported occurrences across the country. 

“Incidents like these are extremely troubling and have been happening with increasing frequency during the Trump administration, reflecting a dangerous trend of suppressing voices critical of U.S. officials and policies,” said the attorney. “As Musa said in their statement, Customs and Border Patrol does not merely police borders. They police dissent.”

You can donate to support Springer’s fundraiser here. 

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