https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/us/politics/border-patrol-migrant-deaths.html
Eileen Sullivan reports in The NY Times:
Jan. 9, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Angie Simms had been searching for her 25-year-old son for a week, filing a missing persons report and calling anyone who might have seen him, when the call came last August. Her son, Erik A. Molix, was in a hospital in El Paso, Texas, where he was strapped to his bed, on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma.
Mr. Molix had suffered head trauma after the S.U.V. he was driving with nine undocumented immigrants inside rolled over near Las Cruces, N.M., while Border Patrol agents pursued him at speeds of up to 73 miles per hour. He died Aug. 15, nearly two weeks after the crash; even by then, no one from the Border Patrol or any other law enforcement or government agency had contacted his family.
The number of migrants crossing the border illegally has soared, with the Border Patrol recording the highest number of encounters in more than six decades in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. With the surge has come an increase in deaths and injuries from high-speed chases by the Border Patrol, a trend that Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, attributes to a rise in brazen smugglers trying to flee its agents.
From 2010 to 2019, high-speed chases by the Border Patrol resulted in an average of 3.5 deaths a year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2020, there were 14 such deaths; in 2021, there were 21, the last on Christmas.
The agency recorded more than 700 “use of force” incidents on or near the southern border in the last fiscal year. Customs and Border Protection does not disclose how many of those ended in death, or how many high-speed chases take place each year.
Crossing the border without documentation or helping people do so is full of risk regardless of the circumstances, and stopping such crossings — and the criminal activity of smugglers — is central to the Border Patrol’s job. But the rising deaths raise questions about how far the agency should go with pursuits of smugglers and migrants, and when and how agents should engage in high-speed chases.
Customs and Border Protection has yet to provide Ms. Simms, a fifth-grade teacher in San Diego, with an explanation of what happened to her son. She saw a news release it issued two weeks after the crash; officials say it is not the agency’s responsibility to explain. She said she understood that officials suspected her son was involved in illegal activity, transporting undocumented immigrants.
“But that doesn’t mean you have to die for it,” she said.
Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has a policy stating that agents and officers can conduct high-speed chases when they determine “that the law enforcement benefit and need for emergency driving outweighs the immediate and potential danger created by such emergency driving.” The A.C.L.U. argues that the policy, which the agency publicly disclosed for the first time last month, gives agents too much discretion in determining the risk to public safety.
In a statement to The New York Times, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, said that while “C.B.P. agents and officers risk their lives every day to keep our communities safe,” the Homeland Security Department “owes the public the fair, objective and transparent investigation of use-of-force incidents to ensure that our highest standards are maintained and enforced.”
But previously unreported documents and details of the crash that killed Mr. Molix shed light on what critics say is a troubling pattern in which the Border Patrol keeps its operations opaque, despite the rising human toll of aggressive enforcement actions.
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ACLU of Texas Released the following related fact sheet:
https://www.aclutx.org/en/fact-sheet-deadly-trend-border-patrol-vehicle-pursuits
FACT SHEET: THE DEADLY TREND OF BORDER PATROL VEHICLE PURSUITS
Vehicle pursuits may make for exciting movie scenes and reality TV, but in real life, police chases are dangerous and often deadly. Yet the United States Border Patrol, the largest law enforcement agency in the country, increasingly engages in vehicle pursuits that result in mounting injuries and deaths. The agency operates with almost no transparency. This culture of impunity puts lives and communities at risk of grave harm each time a chase occurs.
The ACLU of Texas and ACLU of New Mexico partnered to produce the following fact sheet on the disturbing trend of deadly Border Patrol vehicle pursuits. We analyzed Border Patrol’s recently released vehicle pursuit policy, which reveals troubling discretionary authority given to agents. We also evaluate the department’s deeply flawed oversight and investigation protocols surrounding the pursuits, including the involvement of Border Patrol’s Critical Incident Teams – internal investigative units tasked with protecting the agency from liability and further obscuring the truth behind deadly vehicle pursuits.
Click the link below to download and read the fact sheet.
STAY INFORMED
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Read Sullivan’s complete article and get the full version of the ACLU fact sheet at the above links.
ACLU of Texas Attorney Shaw Drake is one of my former Georgetown Law “Refugee Law & Policy” students and a proud member of the New Due Process Army. Proud of you Shaw! 😎It’s what the “new generation of practical scholars” or “applied scholars” does!👍🏼⚖️
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
01-10-22
