New York, NY, May 28, 2025 – Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Immigration Project, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana last week filed suit for records of a government investigation on coercion of unaccompanied immigrant children by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), follows years of civil rights complaints alleging that CBP and ICE officers threatened children with prison, destroyed their birth certificates, and forced them to sign false statements that they were adults in order to hold them in adult detention centers and fast-track their deportations.

“Children who come to the U.S. alone have often experienced unspeakable tragedy and trauma, and there are laws in place to ensure that they receive age-appropriate, compassionate care,” said Anthony Enriquez, Vice President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “So it’s especially disturbing to see adult immigration officers exploit them in order to skirt those laws.”

Unaccompanied immigrants who are younger than 18 years old have certain legal protections by virtue of the fact that they are children. Under U.S. law, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is required to transfer custody of unaccompanied children to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). ORR is then responsible for ensuring children receive age-appropriate care pending their hearings before an immigration judge and reunification with family in the United States.  

But RFK Human Rights, NIP, and ACLU-LA have represented, witnessed, and are aware of immigrant children wrongly held in adult ICE detention centers based on age determinations by CBP and ICE arrived at through coercion of false statements, destruction of critical documents, and reliance on racially discriminatory psuedo-scientific forensics.

The lawsuit cites the case of a boy named I.J., a client of RFK Human Rights, NIP, and ACLU-LA, who arrived at the U.S. border as an unaccompanied 16-year-old carrying his birth certificate and a soccer identification card. CBP officers accused him of lying, declared that his identification was fake and would be thrown in the trash, and threatened to jail him if he did not admit to being over 18. Terrified, I.J. signed a document that CBP presented to him inaccurately stating that he was 18 and sent him to an adult ICE detention center in Louisiana. When I.J. subsequently pleaded for someone in adult detention to believe that he was 16, ICE claimed that an x-ray bone scan indicated he was 19. These scans have been repeatedly discredited as psuedo-science based on racist assumptions that inaccurately age up Black children. As a result of ICE’s illegal age determination procedures, I.J. was locked in a detention center with adult males for months. 

I.J.’s experience is part of a broader pattern. Between 2015 to 2020, the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) received more than 100 complaints of age determination abuses by CBP officers, including destruction of birth certificates, coerced false confessions from unaccompanied children that they are over the age of 18, and falsifying age records. As a result of these complaints, CRCL opened a broad investigation into CBP age determination practices.

“As detailed in our human rights report, Inside the Black Hole, adult detention centers – notorious for horrible conditions, mistreatment and verbal abuse – are absolutely no place for children,” said Nora Ahmed, Legal Director for ACLU Louisiana. “We must act now to protect children from these unacceptable, life-threatening realities and ensure the humane treatment of all unaccompanied children in Louisiana and throughout the nation.”

The FOIA lawsuit requests records related to that CRCL investigation and to age determination policies and practices employed by DHS.

About Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
We are a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that has worked to realize Robert F. Kennedy’s dream of a more just and peaceful world since 1968. In partnership with local activists, we use public education, informational campaigns, and advocacy to promote key human rights issues—championing change makers through narrative building and strategic litigation at home and around the world. And to ensure change that lasts, we foster a social-good approach to business and investment and educate millions of students about human rights and social justice. 

About the National Immigration Project
The National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) is a membership organization of attorneys, advocates, and community members who are driven by the belief that all people should be treated with dignity, live freely, and flourish. We litigate, advocate, educate, and build bridges across movements to ensure that those most impacted by the immigration and criminal systems are uplifted and supported. Learn more at nipnlg.org. Follow NIPNLG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @NIPNLG.

About the ACLU of Louisiana
The ACLU of Louisiana leads the charge to protect the civil rights and liberties of Louisianians, especially those most marginalized and historically harmed. True to our founding during the civil rights movement, we are fearless in the face of intimidation and fight tirelessly to protect and empower Louisiana’s Black, Brown, Immigrant, and LGBTQ+ communities. We are part of a nationwide network of affiliates working  in courts, legislatures, and communities in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.