$2 billion. Thanks to IJ’s newest report exposing civil forfeiture, America now knows just how much money the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies—including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—seized from airport travelers from 2000 to 2016.

One victim of this jetway robbery was IJ client Anthonia Nwaorie, a Houston nurse who was traveling to her native Nigeria in 2017, carrying the $41,377 she had saved to build a free medical clinic for women and girls. CBP agents stopped her on the boarding bridge and took every dime she was carrying. It took an IJ lawsuit to get her money back seven months after it was seized. We know now that DHS agencies made more than 30,500 such seizures since 2000. In nearly 70% of these cases, no arrest or prosecution ever followed. The agencies just took the money with no accompanying criminal charges.

IJ spent more than four years fighting to obtain this never-before-shared database from the Treasury Department, which refused to comply with the FOIA request we filed in 2015. Now we know why they fought so hard to keep their forfeiture activity hidden from public scrutiny. Our report launched late last week with an exclusive in The Washington Post, and it will fuel IJ’s ongoing campaign to end the government’s use of civil forfeiture to commit highway—and jetway—robbery.

IJ will keep the pressure on until enforcement agencies can no longer financially benefit by stealing from all of us, but we need your support. Please join our efforts by making an online donation at ij.org/give-now.

Many thanks,
Scott

Scott G. Bullock
President and General Counsel
Institute for Justice

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