The FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work closely together

The FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work closely together to turn these vulnerabilities into opportunities for gathering intelligence, according to government documents obtained by The Intercept. You may not have seen them in years. Perhaps it is your first time in the United States. Perhaps you do not speak English well. Perhaps you plan to ask for asylum Perhaps you are coming from a country where interactions with people in uniform generally involve bribery, intimidation, or worse CBP assists the FBI in its the airport from a foreign country. You are tired from a long flight,  to target travelers entering the country as potential informants,

When the FBI wants to find informants that fit a certain profile — say, men of Pakistani origin between the ages of 18 and 35 — it has at its fingertips a wealth of data from government agencies like CBP. The FBI gives CBP a list of countries of origin to watch out for among passengers, sometimes specifying other characteristics, such as travel history or age.
 feeding the bureau passenger lists and pulling people aside for lengthy interrogations in order to gather intelligence from them on the FBI’s behalf, the documents show. In one briefing, CBP bills itself as the “GO TO agency in the Law Enforcement world when it comes to identifying individuals of either source or lead potential.”. According to the documents, the FBI uses the border questioning as a pretext to approach people it wants to turn informant and inserts itself into the immigration process by instructing agents on how to offer an “immigration relief dangle.” It is no surprise that law enforcement closely monitors border crossings for criminals or terror suspects. The initiatives described in these documents, however, are explicitly about gathering intelligence, not enforcing the law. A person doesn’t have to be connected to an active investigation or criminal suspect in order to be flagged;
 It also briefs CPB officers on its intelligence requirements. The CBP sifts through its data to provide the bureau with a list of incoming travelers of potential interest. The FBI can then ask CBP to flag people for extra screening, questioning, and follow-up visits. The government materials published with this story were provided to The Intercept by an intelligence community source familiar with the process who is concerned about the FBI’s treatment of Muslim communities.
 the FBI might want them for their potential to provide general intelligence on a given country, region, or group. The goal, according to an FBI presentation on an initiative at Boston’s Logan Airport, is “looking for ‘good guys’ not ‘bad guys.’” Signs of the informant-recruiting pipeline have been noticed outside the government.

 The system, according to the source, amounts to an informal watchlist of people who have caught the FBI’s interest — not because they have done something wrong, or might be dangerous, but because they might be useful to the government.

 Human rights and immigration attorneys interviewed by The Intercept said it was very common for Muslim clients in particular to be questioned at the border upon returning from an international trip, and then contacted by FBI agents within days.
The documents reviewed by The Intercept imply that the program is in place at airports nationwide, something the source confirmed. They do not include extensive data on how many passengers are targeted for intelligence purposes, except for a two-month period at Boston’s Logan International Airport. According to that data, in January 2012, nearly 6,000 passengers were screened through FBI..
One client was straight-up approached at the airport by FBI agents as he was returning from his honeymoon,” said Diala Shamas, a lecturer at Stanford Law School, who worked as an attorney with Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility, or CLEAR, an initiative providing legal services to communities in New York impacted by counterterrorism policies.