San Diego Congress members seek more answers about Border Patrol units that operated without oversight
The letter to DHS and CBP is in response to a Government Accountability Office report detailing the role of unauthorized critical incident teams, which operated without oversight
A trio of San Diego Congress members led by Rep. Juan Vargas are calling on two federal agencies to provide more answers about how seven Border Patrol sectors along the U.S.-Mexico boundary were allowed to operate “homegrown” critical incident teams for decades without oversight.
The letter to Border Patrol’s parent agencies — signed Vargas, Rep. Sara Jacobs, Rep. Scott Peters and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro — comes in response to a report published earlier this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office that documented the use of unregulated critical incident teams in all but two of the nine sectors along the Mexican border. The report revealed that the first such team began in the San Diego Sector more than 35 years ago and that it and subsequent units operated with no oversight from Border Patrol headquarters.
“This report raises serious questions about how these units were able to operate for so long with little to no oversight,” the lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote in the letter addressed to the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “The American people deserve nothing less than full transparency. It’s imperative that CBP take steps to ensure that something like this never happens again.”
The letter states that full implementation of the GAO report’s recommendations is “especially important for our constituents who live near the United States-Mexico border — many of whom regularly interact with CBP officials as they make their way between the United States and Mexico to work or visit family. We must ensure that the Border Patrol officials we entrust to enforce the law are not acting outside of it.”
The letter requests that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller answer a series of questions about the report and the implementation of its recommendations.
“What plans does the agency have to share its progress toward implementing these recommendations with Congress, the public, or both?” the letter asks. “What steps is the agency taking to ensure that agency headquarters is actively engaged in oversight of any new units created at border sectors?”
The lawmakers asked that DHS and CBP respond to their questions by June 29.
“Maintaining the public’s trust is vital to our mission and we look forward to addressing CBP’s commitment to transparency and accountability with the GAO and Congressional committees,” a CBP spokesperson told the Union-Tribune in a statement Thursday. “CBP continually evaluates and improves upon its policies, practices, and procedures to ensure they are consistent with the law, and adhere to the highest standards. CBP has made tremendous strides improving oversight and training, and in reducing incidents involving the use of force. The men and women of CBP strive to carry out our homeland security and law enforcement mission with honor, integrity, and professionalism. When incidents do occur, investigations are conducted thoroughly and with proper oversight, ensuring that appropriate action can be taken in response.”
The Southern Border Communities Coalition, a group dedicated to protecting the rights of migrants and border residents, drew attention to the critical incident teams in a 2021 letter to Congress. The coalition has described the units as “cover-up teams” and “shadow police,” citing statements from former CBP officials who have said the critical incident teams were used to shield Border Patrol and its agents from criminal and civil liability. The coalition said the GAO report “points to widespread and ongoing abuse of power at the nation’s largest law enforcement agency.”
The GAO report was based largely on interviews with Border Patrol officials and a review of incident reports written by the units. It lacked any sweeping allegations of misconduct or cover-ups, instead focusing more on the role the teams played in gathering evidence for civil liability claims in instances when agents used deadly force or were otherwise involved in critical incidents, such as those that resulted in serious injuries or deaths.
The report offered the first government accounting of how the units generally operated and documented how the teams were sometimes involved in witness interviews and evidence collection that likely should have been conducted only by criminal investigators. The only agencies with legal authority to investigate such incidents for potential criminal liability are the FBI, DHS’s Office of Inspector General and CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
CBP disbanded the sector-specific units in 2022 and shifted the responsibility for investigating critical incidents to the Office of Professional Responsibility. That office is a separate arm of CBP created in 2016 to investigate serious misconduct and potential criminality by CBP personnel. The GAO report found that when the sector units were first disbanded, the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is largely made up of former CBP personnel, lacked the resources it needed to investigate all critical incidents.
The Office of Professional Responsibility has since beefed up its operations, nearly doubling its investigator workforce, but questions remain about the office’s independence, especially because more than half of those new hires are former Border Patrol agents, according to the GAO report.
The letter sent by the lawmakers Wednesday asked how CBP and Border Patrol planned to implement the GAO report’s recommendations. “What benchmarks has the agency put in place to assess when the recommendations have been fully implemented?” the congress members asked.
Coincidentally, the letter was sent the same week that other members of Congress celebrated Border Patrol’s 100th anniversary. “It is important that we honor the service and sacrifices of the men and women of Border Patrol and their families, past and present,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Committee on Homeland Security’s ranking Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday.
Both Republicans and Democrats from that committee introduced House resolutions commemorating the May 28, 1924, creation of the Border Patrol.
A day earlier in Imperial Beach, members of the Southern Border Communities Coalition denounced any such celebrations of the Border Patrol, saying the agency was built on a racist foundation that continues to this day.
“One hundred years ago, the U.S. Congress created the Border Patrol, but from day one, this agency has been terrorizing us with their violence,” Lilian Serrano, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said.
Among the speakers at the Imperial Beach event was Maria Puga, the widow of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a Mexican national who died in May 2010 after being beaten, Tased and knelt on by federal authorities at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. His death, part of which was caught on cellphone footage, eventually led to a $1 million settlement for his family but no criminal charges for the officers and agents involved.
“We’re here denouncing these 100 years of abuse,” Puga said in Spanish. “We want justice.”
Araceli Rodríguez spoke Tuesday about her son, José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent in 2012 when he was 16 years old. The agent, Lonnie Swartz, was on the north side of the border fence in Arizona, while the boy was on the south side.
Swartz fired 16 shots, striking the boy 10 times, after claiming that the teen was throwing rocks across the border. Federal prosecutors in Arizona charged Swartz with second-degree murder, but a jury acquitted him. He was retried on lesser charges, with another jury acquitting him of involuntary manslaughter and hanging on a charge of voluntary manslaughter.
“We’re fighting for justice because the Border Patrol appears untouchable,” Rodríguez said in Spanish. “They have permission to kill.”
A CBP spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that CBP, including Border Patrol, “is firmly committed to accountability and transparency.” The spokesperson said that in the last several years, the agency has implemented new use-of-force standards and a new pursuit policy, as well as deployed thousands of body-worn cameras. The spokesperson said CBP has created a standard for “the rapid release of critical incident footage” and releases a wide range of data about its operations.
“These measures place CBP at the forefront of federal law enforcement agencies,” the statement said. “We will continue to prioritize accountability and transparency, and take any appropriate steps to update policies and procedures, as we perform our critical homeland security mission.”
Later in the day Tuesday, the Southern Border Communities Coalition sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to increase oversight and the policing standards for Border Patrol agents. The letter asked Biden to end an exception in the federal guidance that allows for racial and ethnic profiling in the border region; to raise use-of-force standards to align with international law; and to pursue obstruction of justice charges if Border Patrol critical incident teams attempt to influence criminal investigations.
By: ALEX RIGGINS
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune