Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from a press release from the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC). A longer version of this story is at peoplestribune.org/latest-news/
Photo / Pedro Rios
SOUTHERN BORDER, February 23, 2022 — In February, another person was killed by a border agent, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) wasted no time in undermining the investigation, underscoring ongoing concerns about the integrity of misconduct investigations at the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. The incident also raises questions about the role played by Border Patrol Critical Incident Teams (BPCITs), which may be the largest shadow police units operating in the federal government today.
On February 19, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) disclosed that a migrant was killed by a Border Patrol agent near Douglas, Arizona. The CCSO removed that statement in subsequent press releases, stating instead that the migrant was seriously injured and succumbed to his injuries. The medical examiner has now made clear that the migrant died of gunshots fired by the border agent.
There are multiple red flags. Instead of the CCSO processing the scene immediately, they waited a day and did not recover the body of the deceased migrant until the following day. The CCSO does not appear to have collected any forensic evidence at all until the next day, including from the agent involved. Instead, they ceded the incident area to border agents who could have tampered with the scene. Moreover, that other migrants (possible witnesses) were taken to a Border Patrol station raises deep concerns. This is what happened in Del Rio, Texas, last year in a use of force incident involving Haitian migrants — witnesses were taken into custody by border agents and processed (deported) without ever having been questioned by independent investigators. Despite promises from the Biden administration that the incident would be fully investigated, the Office of Inspector General declined and referred it back to CBP, which rarely disciplines its agents.
Since 2010, hundreds of people have died in encounters with border agents and no one has been held accountable. And those are just the cases we know about. Those killed include U.S. citizens, migrants, and border residents, and they include men, women, and children. In the nearly 100-year history of the Border Patrol, agents have enjoyed near total impunity — no agent has ever been successfully prosecuted for killing someone while on duty. Ever.
We call on the Biden administration to turn the page on impunity once and for all, beginning with shutting down BPCITs. We also call on Congress to fully investigate the impunity enabled by BPCITs and CBP, and strengthen the integrity of investigations through legislation.
