By Sarah Roth, Evan Enzer, Olaa Mohamed, Kevin Ye, and Eleni Manis

Schools increasingly turn to spyware, noise detectors, and other invasive mental health prediction tools, with predictably poor results. These error-prone systems flag non-existent crises and miss real dangers.

Mental health surveillance alienates students, making it more likely that they will self-censor and isolating them from teachers and online mental health resources.

Student spyware routinely outs LGBTQ+ students and puts BIPOC youth at risk of police encounters.

New tech appears to be displacing evidence-based mental health screening.

By Corinne Worthington, Erin McFadden, Aaron Greenberg, and Eleni Manis

A year and half post-Roe, ad tech companies continue to surveil abortion seekers on abortion scheduling and abortion advocacy websites.

While ad tech companies make it incredibly difficult to avoid tracking, medical providers and advocacy organizations should take steps to minimize tracking on abortion scheduling and patient-facing informational pages.

Abortion seekers should not let these concerns stop them from seeking care, and the risk to any one individual is likely low at this stage, but the long-term implications are dire.

By Eleni Manis, Nina Loshkajian, Leah Haynes, Shivam Saran, Andrew West, and Corinne Worthington

Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) fusion centers spend over $400 million each year to expand federal, state, and local intelligence sharing, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).

Fusion centers enable ICE to coopt local police databases and surveillance tools (like facial recognition) that otherwise couldn’t be used for deportation purposes.

Fusion center participants routinely give ICE sensitive data, violating state and local protections for undocumented immigrants.

Local police officers use fusion centers to encourage ICE to target suspects when officers can’t find enough evidence to bring charges, effectively deporting their cold cases.

Fusion centers’ opacity allows them to routinely violate state and local civil rights laws without consequence.

By Dhivahari Vivekanandasarma, Vibha Kannan, Erin McFadden, and Eleni Manis

As states go head-to-head on abortion access, medical and financial recordkeeping requirements endanger abortion providers and funders, even in states with strong abortion shield laws.

States that protect reproductive rights must strengthen laws that prohibit abortion-related data disclosure and protect telemedicine abortion access.

These laws are under test as Texas sues a New York doctor in a first, extraordinary attempt to enforce a state abortion ban beyond state lines.

In the coming years, we will likely see growing weaponization of these records to prosecute telemedicine abortion access and out-of-state patient care.

By Eleni Manis, Mahima Arya, Conan Lu, and David Siffert

Summary

Prosecutors and law enforcement are increasingly weaponizing medical and municipal records to shut down gender-affirming care. Transgender and nonbinary Americans are rapidly losing access to evidence-based and medically necessary care, with escalating attacks by the Trump administration. Given the hostility of the president and federal government toward gender-affirming care, the report asserts that state legislators, hospitals, tech companies, schools, and other decision makers must act now to block anti-care prosecutors.

Key Findings Include:

• In a rapidly growing number of cases, prosecutors are weaponizing medical records to sue doctors and block access to gender-affirming care.

• Law enforcement is also expanding anti-care surveillance into non-medical records, including driver’s license, occupational license, and voting databases.

• With no short-term hope for federal trans civil rights protections, state legislators, healthcare providers, and tech companies must act to protect gender-affirming care

By UNESCO , Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

UNESCO, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (OSAPG), has developed a guide aimed at combating hate speech through education: Addressing Hate Speech through Education: A Guide for Policy Makers, which is now available in Spanish.

The publication provides a detailed framework for decision-makers and educators to reinforce educational systems in the fight against hate, offering concrete strategies to create safe and respectful learning environments that promote more inclusive and hate-free societies. These strategies range from media and information literacy to reviewing curricula.

Regarding media and information literacy, the document emphasises the need for students to understand how media and digital platforms operate. This knowledge will enable them to recognise persuasive tactics used to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation, and develop media and information literacy skills that reduce susceptibility to exclusionary and violent ideas. It also stresses the urgency of training teaching staff to understand and reflect on their students’ digital experiences.

"Hate speech undermines fundamental human rights and not only threatens the dignity of individuals but also incites violence, hostility, and discrimination. Through education, not only can we protect freedom of expression, but we can also promote mutual respect and a shared sense of humanity," stated Esther Kuisch Laroche, Director of UNESCO's Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Regarding the importance of detecting and countering hate speech within curricula, the guide highlights that this phenomenon is not only combated in classrooms but requires a comprehensive review of pedagogical materials. This will allow students to be sensitised to contemporary forms of discrimination and violence.

Addressing Hate Speech through Education: A Guide for Policy Makers emphasises the need for a safe, inclusive, and collaborative school environment that gives students a sense of community to counteract the allure of hate. Global citizenship education programmes and socio-emotional learning are key tools for embracing diversity and engaging respectfully in a pluralistic society. It stresses that a comprehensive approach is needed, involving not only educators and school administrators but also parents, the wider educational community, and the private sector.

By Kevin A. Gee, North Cooc & Peter Yu 

Although hate speech against Asian American youth has intensified in recent years—fueled, in part, by anti-Asian rhetoric associated with the COVID-19 pandemic—the phenomenon remains largely understudied at scale and in relation to the role of schools prior to the pandemic. This study describes the prevalence of hate speech against Asian American adolescents in the US between 2015 and 2019 and investigates how school-related factors are associated with whether Asian American youth are victims of hate speech at school. Analyses are based on a sample of 938 Asian American adolescents (Mage = 14.8; 48% female) from the three most recently available waves (2015, 2017, and 2019) of the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. On average, approximately 7% of Asian Americans were targets of hate speech at school between 2015 and 2019, with rates remaining stable over time. Findings also indicate that students had lower odds of experiencing hate speech if they attended schools with a stronger authoritative school climate, which is characterized by strict, yet fair disciplinary rules coupled with high levels of support from adults. On the other hand, Asian American youth faced higher odds of experiencing hate speech if they were involved in school fights. Authoritative school climate and exposure to fights are malleable and can be shaped directly by broader school climate related policies, programs and interventions. Accordingly, efforts to promote stronger authoritative climates and reduce exposure to physical fights hold considerable potential in protecting Asian American youth from hate speech at school.

J. Youth Adolescence 53, 1941–1952 (2024).

by B’nai B’rith International, democ and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS)
This report from B’nai B’rith International, democ and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) documents the surge of antisemitism on university campuses across Europe in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. Since then, Jewish students and faculty have faced harassment, intimidation and violence, creating a climate of fear and exclusion across campuses.

Universities that should safeguard open debate and diversity have instead seen antisemitic rhetoric, Holocaust distortion, glorification of Hamas and calls for “intifada.” Professors, radical student groups, and outside organizations have often fueled this atmosphere, while administrators too often failed to act.

Covering Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the report identifies repeated patterns: threats and assaults against Jewish students, antisemitic vandalism, incitement to violence, and weak or inconsistent institutional responses.

Washington DC: ’nai B’rith International, 2025. 100p.

By The Scottish Government, Social Research

This paper is part of a series of rapid evidence summaries which aim to explore current understanding of prevention strategies and interventions in relation to human trafficking and exploitation in the UK. These include an overarching paper on prevention approaches, and three smaller, more focused reviews on preventing criminal exploitation, sexual exploitation and labour exploitation. This paper focuses on the prevention of criminal exploitation of adults and children, with a focus on the latter, reflecting the evidence base. It was undertaken to inform the Scottish Government’s refresh of its Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy. Whilst evidence is lacking on ‘what works’ to prevent criminal exploitation, the available information hopefully provides some useful insight into the challenges and opportunities for prevention. The research findings and views summarised in this report do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Scottish Government or Scottish Ministers.

Key findings

Robust evidence on public health approaches to preventing criminal exploitation is lacking, and in particular evidence on primary and secondary prevention interventions. There is therefore a lack of robust ‘what works’ evidence on how to prevent and respond to criminal exploitation.

That said, a number of common themes for preventing criminal exploitation arose in the literature reviewed. These included the need for more effective multi-agency working and information sharing; better evidence and data; and calls for a statutory definition of criminal exploitation.

Other ‘promising practices’, mostly relating to child exploitation, were methods for engaging with children and young people at risk of exploitation (e.g. mentors); specialist education and therapeutic support in schools (e.g. restorative justice); and, effective training and awareness raising for those in contact with children, young people and/or families.

Though early intervention (secondary prevention) is considered essential to prevent and respond to child criminal exploitation, the literature reviewed for this paper raises concerns about a lack of a contextual safeguarding approach - which assesses risks outside the family/home environment, including online.

Much of the literature focuses on the criminal justice response (tertiary prevention). A common theme concerning child exploitation was the prioritisation of prosecution over safeguarding.

Also in relation to tertiary prevention, the literature reviewed raises a number of concerns about service responses. Access to tailored, specialist support for criminal exploitation is reported to be limited in the UK. Moreover, a lack of suitable accommodation and appropriate mental health support were flagged as key barriers to preventing child re-exploitation.

Edinburgh: The Scottish Government, 2025. 17p.

Gender, Migration and Categorisation:

Making Distinctions between Migrants in Western Countries, 1945-2010

Edited by Marlou Schrover & Deirdre M. Moloney

All people are equal, according to Thomas Jefferson, but all migrants are not. In this volume, twelve eminent scholars describe and analyse how in countries such as France, the United States, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark distinctions were made through history between migrants and how these were justified in policies and public debates. The chapters form a triptych, addressing in three clusters the problematisation of questions such as ‘who is a refugee’, ‘who is family’ and ‘what is difference’. The chapters in this volume show that these are not separate issues. They intersect in ways that vary according to countries of origin and settlement, economic climate, geopolitical situation, as well as by gender, and by class, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation of the migrants.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013. 272p.

Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories

Edited by Johanna Leinonen, Miika Tervonen, Hans Otto Frøland, Christhard Hoffmann, Seija Jalagin, Heidi Vad Jønsson and Malin Thor Tureby

Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories sheds light on the often-overlooked histories of forced migrants in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden during the 20th and 21st centuries. It offers the first comparative, region-wide volume focused specifically on the histories of refugees and other groups of forced migrants across the Nordic countries. Nordic historiographies have long tended to marginalise or omit the presence of these migrants, producing a perception of forced migration as something ‘new’ or ‘exceptional’. This volume challenges that notion by uncovering the long and varied histories of forced migration within, between, to, and from the Nordic region. In doing so, it repositions forced migrants as integral to the shaping of Nordic societies. The volume includes contributions from and about all the five Nordic countries. It examines both national specificities and shared regional patterns, offering insights into how forced migration has been regulated, remembered, and represented in public discourses across borders. The chapters engage with a wide range of forced migrant groups, such as wartime evacuees, refugees, deportees, Holocaust survivors, and more recent asylum-seekers. Central to the volume is the recognition of forced migrants as historical actors. Drawing on oral histories, personal testimonies, and archival research, the book foregrounds the agency of forced migrants themselves, countering their frequent portrayal as passive or voiceless. By tracing historiographical trends and shifting discourses, regulatory frameworks, and memory practices, Forced Migrants in Nordic Histories contributes a vital historical dimension to contemporary debates on forced migration.

Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2025. 397p.

By Rachel Rosen and Eve Dickson

Bordering social reproduction explores what happens when migrants subject to policies that seek to deny them the means of life nonetheless endeavour to make and sustain meaningful lives. The book provides rich ethnographic insights into the complexities of the everyday lives of mothers and children with insecure migration status who are subject to the United Kingdom’s ‘no recourse to public funds’ policy. This immigration condition prohibits access to housing assistance and most welfare benefits even for the most destitute. Developing innovative theorisations of welfare bordering, this book shows how enforced destitution and debt work alongside detention and deportation as tripartite exclusionary technologies of the racial state. Bordering social reproduction advances the novel concept of weathering to comprehend mothers’ and children’s life-making practices under duress – arguing that these are neither acts of heroic resilience nor solely symptomatic of lives rendered disposable, but indications of the fragilities of repressive migration regimes and, on occasion, the refusal to accept their terms of existence. This engaging book invites us to think carefully about the relationship between welfare states and border regimes, and how we might contest their intertwinement. Making incisive interventions into theoretical discussions around social reproduction, bordering and childhood, the book offers critical contributions in response to contemporary debates about the nature of welfare support and migration.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2025.

By Susan Bibler Coutin

Immigrant residents seeking legal status in the United States face a catch-22: the documents that they must present to immigration officials—bank records, paycheck stubs, and contracts in their own names—are often challenging for undocumented people to obtain. In this book, Susan Bibler Coutin analyzes how undocumented immigrants and the attorneys and paralegals who represent them attempt to surmount this and other documentary challenges. Based on four years of fieldwork and volunteer work in the legal services department of an immigrant-serving nonprofit and in-depth interviews with those seeking status, On the Record explores these complex dynamics by taking seriously both documents themselves and the legal craft that has developed around their use.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2025. 187p.

By The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect

Mass atrocity crimes are often perpetrated against populations based on shared identity characteristics, such as ethnicity, religion, race or language. In many contexts, individuals who belong to more than one marginalized group face heightened and compounded risks. These risks are shaped by the unique social and political dynamics of a given context, where assumptions about power and identity intersect.

There is growing recognition that failing to address complex and overlapping identities can obscure or deny the human rights inherent to all. Effective atrocity prevention must reflect the diversity of populations around the world and recognize how intersecting identities contribute to vulnerability and risk. Applying an intersectional lens is essential to identifying early warning signs, understanding the drivers of identity-based violence and ensuring no one is overlooked.

This new policy brief focuses on the specific risks faced by youth in atrocity situations, particularly when multiple forms of identity compound their vulnerability. This brief underscores the urgent need to meaningfully center youth perspectives, in all their diversity, within national, regional and multilateral atrocity prevention strategies and decision-making processes.

The brief draws on case studies from the Gaza Strip, El Salvador, Sudan and the Uyghur community in and beyond China. These examples are informed by testimony and insights shared by youth activists during an event hosted by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and the European Union on 18 April 2024. Participants included young advocates for marginalized ethnic groups, people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ youth, who shared their lived experiences and strategies for more inclusive, effective prevention.

New York: Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect 2025. 7p.

By Anne Summers  

The data that is published here for the frst time reveals both the shocking extent of domestic violence suffered by women who are now single mothers, and outlines in grim detail the economic, health and other consequences of the choice these women made to leave the violence. The findings are both new and confronting and have major policy ramifications for how we address domestic violence, and to the policy-induced poverty that is its outcome for far too many women and children. Although there is extensive, and growing, awareness about domestic violence in contemporary Australia, the true extent, and the consequences, of this violence remain largely hidden. Perhaps as a result, the conversations about domestic violence are mostly focused on how to deal with its victim-survivors, rather than how to stop the violence from happening. The same is true of much policy. Prevention policy is mostly long-term, based on the assumption that we need full gender equality in our society for domestic violence to end, yet there is no federal government plan for how to achieve gender equality in Australia. (Nor is there any evidence that countries with greater gender equality than Australia have lower rates of domestic violence. In fact, the opposite is often the case.) Another major focus is teaching respectful relationships in schools – another long-term approach that will hopefully pay dividends in the future but cannot be expected to have much impact on violence being perpetrated today. All this suggests that a policy reset is required, and for that to happen the conversation needs to change. And for the conversation to change, we need new information. This was the overall context and rationale for the report that follows: the search for new information that might prompt us to take a fresh look at domestic violence in Australia. Rather than continuing to look through all the familiar lenses, rehashing all the known data, and continuing to reinforce our existing findings and convictions, I thought it was necessary to seek a fresh perspective. This might, I hoped, yield new knowledge which can, in turn, suggest new ways of tackling our twin objectives: reducing domestic violence, and providing better support for the women who escape it. I decided to do this by examining the circumstances of single mothers who had experienced domestic violence. My reason for this choice was that single mothers appeared to experience domestic violence at a much greater rate than women in any other household group.

Syfnry: University of Technology Sydney., 2022. 109p.

By Emilomo Ogbe , Stacy Harmon , Rafael Van den Bergh , Olivier Degomme 

  Background - Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a key public health issue, with a myriad of physical, sexual and emotional consequences for the survivors of violence. Social support has been found to be an important factor in mitigating and moderating the consequences of IPV and improving health outcomes. This study’s objective was to identify and assess network oriented and support mediated IPV interventions, focused on improving mental health outcomes among IPV survivors. Methods A systematic scoping review of the literature was done adhering to PRISMA guidelines. The search covered a period of 1980 to 2017 with no language restrictions across the following databases, Medline, Embase, Web of Science, PROQUEST, and Cochrane. Studies were included if they were primary studies of IPV interventions targeted at survivors focused on improving access to social support, mental health outcomes and access to resources for survivors. Results 337 articles were subjected to full text screening, of which 27 articles met screening criteria. The review included both quantitative and qualitative articles. As the focus of the review was on social support, we identified interventions that were i) focused on individual IPV survivors and improving their access to resources and coping strategies, and ii) interventions focused on both individual IPV survivors as well as their communities and networks. We categorized social support interventions identified by the review as Survivor focused, advocate/case management interventions (15 studies), survivor focused, advocate/case management interventions with a psychotherapy component (3 studies), community-focused, social support interventions (6 studies), community-focused, social support interventions with a psychotherapy component (3 studies). Most of the studies, resulted in improvements in social support and/or mental health outcomes of survivors, with little evidence of their effect on IPV reduction or increase in healthcare utilization. Conclusion There is good evidence of the effect of IPV interventions focused on improving access to social support through the use of advocates with strong linkages with community based structures and networks, on better mental health outcomes of survivors, there is a need for more robust/ high quality research to assess in what contexts and for whom, these interventions work better compared to other forms of IPV interventions. 

PLoS ONE 15(6): e0235177.

By The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Hundreds of gang members, murderers, and sex offenders exploited a vulnerability in America’s immigration systemWASHINGTON – Today U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a report identifying significant national security and integrity vulnerabilities in the Special Immigrant Juvenile program. These national security vulnerabilities provided a path to lawful permanent residence and eventually citizenship to criminal aliens, gang members, and known or suspected terrorists.The “Criminality, Gangs, and Program Integrity Concerns in Special Immigrant Juvenile Petitions” report reviews over 300,000 aliens’ SIJ petitions filed from the beginning of fiscal year 2013 through February 2025. According to the report:More than half of SIJ petitioners filing in FY 2024 were over age 18;Many entered the United States without inspection;Many came from countries identified as posing national security concerns, demonstrating the lax screening and vetting and anti-fraud policies of the Biden Administration; andSome SIJ petitioners engaged in age and identity fraud, including falsifying their name, date of birth, and country of citizenship.The report also identified 853 known or suspected gang members who filed SIJ petitions, most of which were approved. More than 600 MS-13 gang members filed SIJ petitions, and more than 500 were approved. MS-13 gang member SIJ petitioners include at least 70 charged with federal racketeering offenses and many others charged with violent crimes in the United States. Other approved gang members include more than 100 known or suspected members of the 18th Street gang; at least three Tren de Aragua gang members; and dozens of Sureños and Norteños gang members.“Criminal aliens are infiltrating the U.S. through a program meant to protect abused, neglected, or abandoned alien children,” said USCIS Spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser. “This report exposes how the open border lobby and activist judges are exploiting loopholes in the name of aiding helpless children.”On June 6, USCIS rescinded the policy of categorically considering deferred action for special immigrant juveniles. The Trump administration also is exploring further action to mitigate vulnerabilities in the integrity of the SIJ program, address significant national security and public safety concerns, and ensure the SIJ classification remains available for the juveniles it was intended to protect.Congress first established the SIJ program in 1990 and has amended it several times to allow young illegal aliens, whom a juvenile court has determined cannot reunify with one or both parents due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment, to apply for SIJ classification and lawful permanent resident status and have an eventual path to U.S. citizenship. By law, there are no criminal bars or good moral character requirements for SIJ petition approval.

Washington, DC: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2025. 36p.

By The University of California Digital Investigations Network

In January 2023, the University of California Digital Investigations Network (UC Network) received a Public Interest Technology University Network grant to institutionalize and expand the UC Network to support frontline environmental defenders. During the first phase of the project, in collaboration with Cultural Survival, an organization that advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures and political resilience, students in the UC Network conducted an open source investigation (OSI) into the deaths of 13 murdered Indigenous land defenders in Brazil, and produced a report documenting the circumstances surrounding their deaths (also available in Portuguese). During the second phase of the project, we focused on developing a broader understanding of how OSI methods can be used to document environmental harms globally, and how OSI is being used in environmental harm research, advocacy and litigation. We conducted a literature review and case law analysis, and convened a meeting with leading several experts who are using OSI in their work, and conducted individual consultations with others. This brief report is an outcome of phase two of our project. In addition, environmental exploitation often goes hand in hand with human exploitation. Indigenous communities are at the forefront of land defense worldwide as their land is often targeted by state and corporate actors through agriculture, fishing, logging, and mining and the extraction of other resources. For example, the Brazilian human rights group Conselho Indigenista Missionario reported the killing of 795 Indigenous land defenders between 2019 and 2022 under former president Jair Bolsonaro. Those engaged in seeking accountability for environmental harms should consider the use of OSI tools to complement more traditional research methods and thoroughly document the ways in which land, peoples and communities have been impacted by extractive, pollutive, and degrading practices.   

Berkeley: The University of California Digital Investigations Network, 2024.   10p.

By Ajeng Larasati and Marcela Jofré 

Since the adoption of the Second Protocol to the ICCPR in 1989, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, a total of 90 countries have ratified the international treaty with 12 of them joining this international commitment in the decade between 2014 and 2023. Coupled with national and international civil society activism, the strong push towards abolition contributed to the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes in 14 countries, and for ordinary crimes in 5 other countries between 2014 and 2023. Unfortunately, these positive developments were not mirrored by parallel progress towards abolition of the death penalty for drug offences specifically. Of those countries which abolished the death penalty for all or ordinary crimes, none had the death penalty for drug crimes in the books; and of those which reduced the list of crimes to which the death penalty could be imposed, only one did so for all drug offences, namely Pakistan, in 2023. According to HRI’s Global Overview 2023, 34 countries and territories still have the death penalty for drug offences in the law. Known drug-related executions remain high; they accounted for roughly 42% of total executions in 2023. This is despite international advocacy and an increasing engagement by the United Nations (UN), international bodies, as well as civil society to move towards the abolition of the death penalty. For example, in 2019, the UN Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment Number 36, which provides authoritative guidance on the interpretation of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and clarifies standards on the use of the death penalty according to international law. Among other things, the General Comment also elaborates on the irrevocability of the abolition of the death penalty for those countries that have already abolished it and explicitly mentions that drug offences “can never serve as the basis” for the application of the death penalty. There has also been widespread recognition of the many human rights violations associated with its application. Special Rapporteurs and other UN mechanisms have regularly monitored and reported on the application of the death penalty and human rights violations experienced by people facing or sentenced to death, including violations of a fair trial and due process and freedom from torture and ill-treatment. Leveraging HRI’s unique expertise in this field, this report will analyse how the landscape of the death penalty for drug offences has shifted in the last decade. This report builds on the pioneering work HRI has been doing since its first ‘The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview (‘Global Overview’) in 2007, which analyses the main trends regarding people on death row9 , death sentences and executions for drug offences, as well as key developments at national and international level in the last decade, between 2014 and 2023

London: Harm Reduction International, 2024  46p.

By Travis J. Masters, Rebecca Gambler

CBP relied on contracts to operate and maintain soft-sided facilities (SSF). These facilities provide support and services when additional processing and holding capacity is needed for individuals apprehended along the southwest border. DHS also received funding to construct Joint Processing Centers (JPC)—permanent facilities that DHS expects will be more cost-effective than SSFs in the future. GAO was asked to review CBP’s and DHS’s use and oversight of SSFs and JPCs. This report examines, among other things, (1) how CBP used contracts to support its SSF needs, and (2) the extent to which CBP and DHS engaged in planning efforts for SSF and JPC related acquisitions. GAO analyzed contracting data on SSF contract obligations for fiscal years 2019-2024, and reviewed DHS budget plans, acquisition policies, and cost estimates for SSFs and JPCs. GAO also visited four selected SSF locations in Yuma and Tucson, AZ, El Paso, TX, and San Diego, CA based in part on apprehension and cost data; reviewed a nongeneralizable sample of eight of 69 contracts for SSFs and JPC construction contract documents; and interviewed DHS and CBP officials. What GAO Recommends GAO is making six recommendations, including that CBP identifies and documents lessons learned from its SSF acquisitions; and that DHS documents its process for identifying future JPC locations and completes a life-cycle cost estimate for the Laredo JPC. DHS concurred with the recommendations  

Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office  - GAO, 2025. 64p