CBP Claims 3-Year-Old Came to U.S. 'To Look for Work'

"Last summer, at a United States Border Patrol station along the U.S.-Mexico border, a parade of Border Patrol agents interviewed Y-F-.  Addressing Y-F- directly in Spanish, a government agent told Y-F- that "I am an officer of the United States Department of Homeland Security."  He informed Y-F- that "I want to take your sworn statement" and warned Y-F- that "[t]his may be your only opportunity to present information to me and the Department of Homeland Security to make a decision." Under oath, the agent interrogated Y-F-. "Do you understand what I've said to you?  Yes.  Do you have any questions?  No.  On and on the interrogation went.  Near the end of the interrogation, the agent asked Y-F- "Why did you leave your home country or country of last residence?"  Y-F- responded, "To look for work."  The interrogation was memorialized in a writing – on the official government Forms I-867A/B Record of Sworn Statement (and the continuation sheet, Form I-831) to be exact.  The testimony was written in a first-person, question-and-answer format which gives it the appearance that it is a verbatim transcription of the interrogation.  The writings were sworn to by the government agent who administered the oath and they were even witnessed and counter-signed by yet another agent who attested to having witnessed the entire interrogation.  On its face, it all seemed so official, so precise, and so full of due process and normal procedure.

... Y-F-‘s interview, so painstakingly transcribed, sworn, signed and counter-signed, almost certainly never happened in the format in which it was memorialized.  The impossibility of the interview, in spite of the DHS officers’ affirmations of veracity and the rule of government regularity is plain on the face of the writings themselves: Y-F- was three years old at the time he was interrogated." - AILA amicus brief, Matter of M-R-R-, June 2, 2015, now pending at the Board of Immigration Appeals.