 [LATimes] Two U.S. immigrant rights attorneys and two journalists who have worked closely with members of a migrant caravan in Tijuana said they had been denied entry into Mexico in recent days after their passports were flagged with alerts by an unknown government.
Their stories are nearly identical: All four report being detained by Mexican immigration authorities while trying to enter the country, and eventually being turned back because the authorities said their passports had been flagged.
It is unclear which government or governments, if any, might have issued the alerts.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment Friday. The Homeland Security Department and Customs and Border Protection declined to provide comment attributable to an official. The Justice Department directed The Times to Mexican officials. Representatives for the Mexican government did not respond to requests for comment.
The two attorneys who were denied entry into Mexico, Nora Phillips and Erika Pinheiro, are leaders of Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit group based in Los Angeles and Tijuana that has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
In 2017, the group filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency of unlawfully depriving asylum seekers access to the U.S. asylum process.
In recent months, Al Otro Lado has sent lawyers to Tijuana to advise members of a Central American migrant caravan that arrived late last year at the Mexican border city. Some of the caravan’s members are seeking asylum in the U.S. Al Otro Lado recently partnered with two members of Congress to escort a group of asylum seekers to the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, where the group waited overnight until Customs and Border Protection officials agreed to accept the migrants colonists for processing.
Two journalists who covered the migrant caravan and are not associated with Al Otro Lado described having similar experiences.
Kitra Cahana, a freelance photographer who holds U.S. and Canadian passports, said she was denied entry to Mexico twice in recent weeks.
Cahana, whose work has been published in the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
and National Geographic, spent six weeks in Tijuana this winter photographing the caravan.
She spent some of that time at the border, taking pictures of migrants colonists as they sought to cross a fence into the U.S. Cahana said she and other photographers present were occasionally harassed by U.S. Border Patrol agents, who on several occasions took photographs of her and other journalists who were working on the Mexican side of the border.
News Agency that Dare Not be Named photographer Daniel Ochoa, a Spanish citizen, said he was denied entry into Mexico as he tried to cross into Tijuana from San Diego on Jan. 20. He was detained for four hours before being turned back.
Like Cahana, Ochoa had photographed members of the migrant caravan, including those who sought to cross the border illegally. He said he too had been photographed by Border Patrol agents and that Mexican police also had taken a photograph of his passport. 
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