New rules for U.S. border agents engaged in high-speed vehicle chases are an important and long-sought step to reduce dangers in border policing. But training and transparency will be key to reducing crash-related injuries and deaths in the long term.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which oversees the Border Patrol, enacted the rules this month in response to longstanding complaints from border residents and civil rights groups about dangerous high-speed chases. The American Civil Liberties Union has documented 105 fatalities resulting from such pursuits since 2010, including 52—or about half—in Texas alone.
In 2020, seven people were killed and three were seriously injured in a crash that occurred during a high-speed chase by Border Patrol agents in El Paso. Last year, two people died and eight more were sent to the hospital following a vehicle rollover that occurred during a Border Patrol pursuit in Santa Teresa, N.M. near the Texas state line. An investigation by Pro Publica and the Los Angeles Times published in 2020 found that between 2015 and 2018, Border Patrol agents engaged in more than 500 vehicle pursuits in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. One of every three of those incidents ended in a crash.
CBP acknowledged the danger of chasing suspects on roadways when it announced its revised policy.
“Vehicle pursuits do inherently pose risk—to members of the public, officers, and agents, and those in a vehicle being pursued who may not be willing participants,” CBP said in a statement.
Revised pursuit policy adds needed discretion, scrutiny
The Editorial Board recognizes that patrolling the vast U.S. border with Mexico is difficult and dangerous work that sometimes demands the pursuit of those who flee law enforcement and put others at risk. But these situations require discretion in determining when to chase suspects and when to refrain in the service of public safety. The revised Customs and Border Protection policy aims to strike a balance by adopting a standard of “objective reasonableness” requiring agents to assess the need to chase and apprehend a suspect versus the potential threat to themselves, the public and those inside a fleeing vehicle, some of whom are inevitably migrants whose crime was crossing the border illegally.
The revised CBP policy also prohibits agents from pursuing a speeding vehicle that appears to be overloaded unless there is probable cause to believe a felony involving the use, or threatened use, of physical force or violence has been committed. The policy also disallows highly dangerous vehicular maneuvers such as ramming a fleeing suspect off the road. A new internal review structure for vehicle pursuits has also been established within CBP, requiring examination of each incident by agency management.
We agree with the ACLU’s recommendation that CBP officers, agents and supervisors be trained on the revised policy. We also recommend that CBP make details of the training public to demonstrate its credibility. The Office of Professional Review should also make public the reviews of all incidents resulting in injuries or death. ACLU officials told the Editorial Board that internal reports on high-speed chases have not been made public in the past. Transparency would foster trust between Border Patrol agents and the communities in which they operate. Representatives of the Border Patrol and CBP did not respond to our requests for comment.
Operation Lone Star high-speed chases also have led to deaths
The new vehicle pursuit policy applies only to federal officers and agents, but they aren’t the only law enforcement officers putting lives at risk during high-speed vehicle chases. During the first nine months of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border enforcement program launched in March 2021, at least 30 people died and 71 more were injured in high-speed vehicle pursuits involving the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to data compiled from publicly available sources by the ACLU and the Texas Civil Rights Project.
The Editorial Board has long advocated a comprehensive and humane rewrite of federal immigration laws to better manage the influx of migrants seeking a better life in the United States. The newly revised Border Patrol pursuit policy is an important step toward improving public safety, but much more remains to be done.
Austin American-Statesman
