Jan 2023MexicoCBP One app
In January 2023 US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made its CBP One mobile app the only way for migrants at the US-Mexico border to apply for asylum appointments and exemption from Title 42 restrictions; applicants had to upload a photo of themselves through the app. In February 2023 the Guardian and the Border Chronicle, both reporting by Melissa del Bosque, quoted three non-profits working with Haitian and African asylum seekers in Tijuana, Reynosa and Matamoros who said the app's facial recognition was failing to register many people with darker skin, so they could not upload their photos and obtain appointments. The executive director of Al Otro Lado said Haitians at a workshop her organisation held in Tijuana the day after the app went live got error after error message. The Sidewalk School said hardly anyone among about 4,000 Black asylum seekers in Reynosa and 1,000 Haitians in Matamoros was getting an appointment, and that shining construction lights on faces let adults get past the photo step but not children under six, which kept families from applying. A Haitian Bridge Alliance attorney said the app had helped lighter-skinned applicants but not Haitians. The advocates also described other barriers, such as outdated phones and poor internet access. CBP did not answer the Guardian's questions before publication and told the Border Chronicle no one was available to respond. No technical analysis of the failures is reported.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 31/10/2026
3 Jun 2026United StatesUnidentified AI tool
On 3 June 2026 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit fined immigration attorneys Mike Singh Sethi and William Rounds $2,500 each and suspended both from practice before the court for six months. Briefs filed in an asylum petition for review cited two cases that do not exist and attributed quotations to opinions that do not contain them. In a motion to correct, the attorneys called the errors typographical, and at oral argument Rounds twice said AI was not used. In their response to the court's order to show cause, they conceded that the errors were probably the product of unauthorised AI use by the firm's unlicensed brief writers and a failure to check citations. The court said the suspension was owed to their repeated failure of candour. The Board of Immigration Appeals then suspended Sethi from practice before the Board, the immigration courts and the Department of Homeland Security for six months, effective 13 June 2026, and designated that decision as a precedent on 1 October 2026.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources · Added 14/10/2026
26 Jun 2025 to 17 Nov 2025United KingdomUnidentified AI tool
Judicial review grounds lodged in the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) on 26 June 2025 by a solicitors' firm cited four authorities that the judge could not find or that carried wrong citations and propositions. The firm's compliance officer, a solicitor whose name was on the claim form, said a junior fee-earner had drafted the grounds under his supervision; his written explanation named an outdated precedent, practitioner blogs and personal notes as the sources. After a Hamid hearing on 5 November 2025, the tribunal recorded that he accepted the fee-earner had relied on false citations generated by AI, and in a judgment promulgated on 17 November 2025 it referred him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the false citations and his failure to supervise. The tribunal said it does not matter how such errors come about. It also announced that the Upper Tribunal judicial review claim form now requires a statement of truth that cited authorities exist and support the propositions they are cited for.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026
17 Sept 2025 to 21 Sept 2026United KingdomChatGPT
A published Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) decision issued on 21 September 2026 records that the grounds of appeal and skeleton argument in a Namibian national's protection appeal were produced by a paralegal at her then solicitors using ChatGPT. The tribunal recorded her counsel's acceptance that the grounds cited fake cases, quoted passages absent from those judgments and attributed to the First-tier judge sentences he never wrote, and itself called one purported quotation pure invention. The September 2025 error-of-law hearing was adjourned, and the appellant later withdrew three of her four original grounds. The tribunal allowed an amended version of her one surviving ground but found that it disclosed no error of law. It refused her permission to add two new grounds, holding that she should not be allowed to advance entirely new grounds, or replace grounds riddled with misrepresentations, so long after the time limit, and in the alternative found those grounds without merit. It directed the Home Office to file any wasted costs application against the firm. The decision states that two individuals have reported themselves to the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the Law Society Gazette reported the decision on 8 October 2026.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 09/10/2026