Customs and Border Protection Leaks Information of 1,300 American University Students After Virtual Career Fair
by Kayleigh Thompson
Following a virtual career fair hosted by the AU Career Center, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leaked over 1300 students’ personal information that had been collected during the event via email.
The event, which took place on Friday May 15th and included more than 100 organizations, was an attempt to provide access to job and internship opportunities for students who have been forced to stay home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the weeks prior to the event, student participants were required to submit personal information for registration, including their AU ID numbers and an indication of a need for visa sponsorship. Students were never provided with a disclaimer as to which organizations would receive their information.
“I was under the assumption that if you expressed interest you’d give companies your info, and if you weren’t interested they wouldn’t receive it, like a traditional career fair,” explained recent AU graduate Connor Reitler, “we didn’t know that all companies, regardless of our personal interest in them, were given our information.”
CBP, the largest agency of the Department of Homeland Security, was one of the many organizations looking to fill positions with students and recent graduates. After the event, CBP sent out a follow-up email, which in addition to containing information on how to begin a career in law enforcement, included a spreadsheet containing nearly 1400 student candidates’ personal information. This information included students’ full names, contact information, state of residence, education, and whether or not they would require visa sponsorship to work in the United States. The file also contains a column marking a candidate’s interest in a CBP position, making it clear that they had access to all participants’ information.
The leak sparked outrage and concern, specifically in regards to the release of potential undocumented students’ status to CBP and a large portion of the AU community.
Another attendee and a recent SIS graduate, Joseph Desmone, elaborated on this concern, explaining,
“When it comes to this particular issue, the CBP is under DHS and in the same department as ICE and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). They all use the same ERO database. With this in mind, that listed information being given to CBP at the career fair is just one click away from being cross checked with said database. So therein lies this huge uncertainty in students who are undocumented that were at the fair trying to seek employee opportunities and a better future. That simple mishap could land undocumented students on deportation flights, in immigration detention, or in a court hearing. A small issue that was, by all intents and purposes, not intended to have these consequences could very well lead to undocumented students being in danger.”
CBP recalled the email containing the spreadsheet an hour after its original sending. On Monday May 18th, an email from a supervisory CBP officer called the leak a mistake and said that sharing the data “was not standard practice” and that the agency takes “the dissemination of this information very seriously.” In another follow-up coming immediately after the Monday response, the officer requested that all recipients of the document delete it.
The response from AU itself has been much more subdued. In an email on Tuesday May 19th to the participants of the fair, rather than the entire student body, the Career Center reemphasized the apology sent by CBP, and once again asked for the file to be deleted. When asked to what extent AU is at fault for the leak, Reitler commented,
“We have a large population of international students here at AU. If this leak came from a small company I would be a bit more understanding, but when you're dealing with a federal agency that deals with sensitive issues like visas and deportation, it’s a really big issue. I think AU needs to deal with the fact that they allowed CBP to get this information in the first place. ”
CBP is a traditional participant in AU career fairs, but many in the past have questioned whether or not they should be on campus or online in this capacity. In a statement given to The Rival American, Latinx and immigration rights activist Cherén Alvarado explained her opinion on the situation,
“I don’t think CBP should be on campus or involved with AU in any capacity. We have students here who are either on student visas, student visas set to expire, have parents or siblings who have no documentation, or are a part of a community with people of the sort. It is too risky to bring CBP, an organization known for their entrapment practices and their complete disregard of legality when it comes to student visas (and most documentation issues really, see stories of Northeastern University students on visa illegally deported to Iran) onto a campus that hosts some of their preferred victims…”
AU has yet to release a statement to formally address the entire community or provide insight into the steps that will be taken to prevent an incident like this from happening in the future. While AU did not leak the information itself, for many, the issue lies in the fact that students were unaware that their data would be going to the CBP in the first place.
Alvarado concluded her statement saying, “...any sort of access to student visa statuses is a wild invasion of privacy for these students, and only puts them at risk for being targeted later. AU needs to do better, read the room in regards to CBP, and get them away from campus.”