PHOENIX — Arizona’s attorney general claims Facebook admits to aiding human smuggling, and he wants U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate.
The company denies it is letting cartel operations use its website to connect with people trying to get into this country illegally. But a company official concedes that Facebook does “allow people to share information about how to enter a country illegally or request information about how to be smuggled.’’
William Castleberry, the company’s vice president of state policy, said that’s far different than what Attorney General Mark Brnovich is claiming.
He said in a letter to Brnovich that the policy draws a line between the business of human smuggling and “interfering with people’s ability to exercise their right to seek asylum, which is recognized in international law.’’
But Brnovich said that, as far as he’s concerned, the company is facilitating the illegal entry of people into the United States, which is a crime.
His letter to Garland is the latest in a series of actions by Brnovich, who is running in a six-way race to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, aimed at the Biden administration and its immigration and border policies.
He has filed several lawsuits in federal court on issues such as how quickly people not in the country legally must be removed, and his claims that the president’s decision to cease construction of the border wall violates environmental laws.
In this case, however, Brnovich has no direct legal recourse, as states are largely preempted from enforcing federal immigration laws and certain criminal statutes related to human smuggling. So he is applying some heat to Garland through his letter, and a press release Thursday that went along with it.
“It is the federal government’s duty to enforce its immigration and criminal laws, and specifically, the Department of Justice’s responsibility to investigate and prosecute these matters,’’ Brnovich wrote to Garland.
Brnovich said he first wrote to Facebook earlier this year after media reports that human smugglers and drug cartels were allegedly using the platform to instruct users to engage in illegal activities.
That prompted the two-page response from Castleberry.
“We don’t allow people to sell or solicit drugs on Facebook nor do we allow criminal organizations to operate on our platform,’’ he wrote.
“We remove posts and reject ads when we see this kind of behavior to help keep people safe,’’ Castleberry continued. “We also prohibit sharing content that offers to provide or facilitate human smuggling, which includes advertising a human smuggling service.’’
He told Brnovich that Facebook is justified in letting people share information about how to cross a border illegally or seek information about how to be smuggled.
“After consulting with human rights experts, we developed this policy to ensure we were prohibiting content relating to the business of human smuggling but not interfering with people’s ability to exercise their right to seek asylum, which is recognized in international law,’’ he wrote. “Allowing people to seek and share information related to smuggling can also help minimize the likelihood of them being exploited by human traffickers.’’
Brnovich sniffed at that distinction. “Facebook knows that every single person, if you’re smuggled across that border or comes into this country illegally, is putting money in the pockets of cartels,’’ he said.
“Everyone knows cartels are profiting from all the human smuggling that’s going on across our border,’’ Brnovich continued. “So, by allowing this, they are putting money and profits into the hands of cartels.’’ Those profits allow cartels to engage in more criminal activity on our side of the border, he said.
“They are providing information and making opportunities available for people to be smuggled into the country and to try to evade our immigration laws,’’ Brnovich continued. “On the face of it, that seems like they are basically admitting that they are facilitating a federal crime.”
A Facebook spokesperson provided only a brief response Friday to Brnovich’s letter to Garland.
“We prohibit content that offers or assists with human smuggling, invest in technology and people to proactively identify it, remove it from our platform whenever we find it,’’ the statement read.
Brnovich sidestepped questions of whether there is a legal line between advertising illegal services like human smuggling and simply providing advice — even on a how-to basis — on crossing the border.
“I will just tell you that (I know from) years as a prosecutor, there’s a line and at some point people cross the line from expressing an opinion to actually facilitating a crime.’’
