The Things They Carried: Is the Border Patrol discarding asylum seekers’ documents?

In Arizona and Texas, border residents are noticing more and more personal belongings left behind, including confidential documents, along the U.S. side of the border wall.

A Honduran passport and birth certificate found in September 2021 by Scott Nicol on the U.S. side of the border wall, near his home in South Texas. The birth certificate had been crumpled up and lay in the dirt next to the wall.

In Arizona and Texas, border residents are noticing more and more personal belongings discarded along the U.S. side of the bord…