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The presence of Border Patrol agents, and its parent agency CBP, on the streets in major U.S. cities is disturbing. Border communities have long been terrorized by this agency — which acts first and never has to answer for it later. THREAD:
Congress keeps dumping money on the agency despite CBP’s horrifying track-record of racism, abuse, and impunity. The CBP kidnappings of people during protests are just the most visible latest example of their offenses. A recap some of the worst recent abuses:
In 2010, Anastasio Hernández Rojas was beaten, tortured, and suffocated by CBP officers until he stopped breathing. He was revived and remained on life support for several days until he died on May 31, 2010.
In 2011, Border Patrol killed two teenagers, Ramses 17 and José Antonio 16, in separate incidents. In both cases, the agents were standing in the U.S. and fired across into Mexico. José Antonio was shot 10 times in the back. No agent has been held accountable.
In 2017, Rosa María Hernández, a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, was detained by Border Patrol while going to a Corpus Christi hospital for surgery. Border Patrol then followed her to the hospital and put her in removal proceedings. She was released after public outcry.
Border Patrol carried out one of the Trump Administration’s cruelest policies — family separation at the border. Almost 3,000 children were separated from their parents between October 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018. To this day, many children remain separated from their families.
In 2018, a Border Patrol agent shot in the head Claudia Patricia Gómez González, an unarmed indigenous Guatemalan woman, in Rio Bravo, Texas. Her family is still seeking justice and answers surrounding their daughter’s death.
Last year, a Border Patrol agent with a history of using excessive force and sending racist messages pleaded guilty to intentionally hitting a migrant with his pickup truck. His attorney referred to the agent’s remarks as “commonplace” and “part of the agency’s culture.”
Last year, @ProPublica broke a story on a secret Border Patrol Facebook group with close to 10,000 members. The group joked about migrant deaths and referred to Latina lawmakers as “scumbags” and “hoes.” The then-Border Police Chief was also a member of the group.
At least 6 unaccompanied children have died in CBP custody in the past two years. Prior to that, there had not been a single death of a child in custody in over a decade, and there are still unanswered questions about their deaths.
A @LATimes and @ProPublica investigation found in 2019 that over the last four years, “at least 250 people were injured and 22 died” in Border Patrol car chases. The agency refuses to release their high-speed pursuit policy. https://features.propublica.org/border-crashes/death-injuries-in-high-speed-border-patrol-chases/
Just last month, on June 25, seven people were killed in downtown El Paso after a Border Patrol initiated a car chase. It’s the deadliest crash in recent El Paso memory. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2020/07/01/witnesses-contradicts-border-patrols-claim-that-they-werent-chasing-car-when-7-died-in-crash/
The list of CBP abuses — an agency whose history is rooted in white nationalism and surveillance of Black and Brown communities — could go on and on and on, including what’s happening across major U.S. cities today.
