{"id":24579,"date":"2021-02-03T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=343464"},"modified":"2021-02-03T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T12:00:08","slug":"the-border-patrol-calls-itself-a-humanitarian-organization-a-new-report-says-thats-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/03\/the-border-patrol-calls-itself-a-humanitarian-organization-a-new-report-says-thats-a-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Border Patrol Calls Itself a Humanitarian Organization. A New Report Says That\u2019s a Lie."},"content":{"rendered":"
For more than<\/u> two decades, the U.S. Border Patrol has told a story about the role it plays in the Southwest. Confronted with the fact that thousands of migrants have died crossing the border during those years, the agency has produced dramatic videos of agents conducting rescues, invited reporters to demonstrations showcasing its lifesaving skills, and pointed to the existence of its specialized search and rescue unit. The efforts are used to drive home a talking point common among Border Patrol officials, one in which the most militarized component of the nation\u2019s largest police agency is also the border\u2019s \u201clargest humanitarian organization<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n A new report from two of the border\u2019s leading nongovernmental humanitarian organizations calls this narrative into question, arguing that a close examination of Border Patrol responses to migrants in distress proves that militarized law enforcement and the provision of humanitarian aid do not mix.<\/p>\n \u201cLeft to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance<\/a>,\u201d published Wednesday by No More Deaths, a faith-based organization based in Tucson, Arizona, and the Coalici\u00f3n de Derechos Humanos, an organization that has provided humanitarian aid on the border since the 1990s, analyzed hundreds of emergency cases recorded by a nongovernmental crisis line and more than 2,100 calls routed by Pima County Sheriff\u2019s Department 911 dispatchers to the Border Patrol over a two-year period. Buttressed by further analysis of Border Patrol press releases and interviews, the 122-page report documented evidence of inaction, indifference, and obstruction to reports of missing migrants. The Border Patrol \u201chas monopolized emergency services for undocumented people in the borderlands,\u201d the report said, crowding out other sources of humanitarian aid while failing to provide those services on its own. In the face of a humanitarian catastrophe that\u2019s taken a minimum of nearly 10,000 lives, the report concluded that the Border Patrol\u2019s \u201csystematic negligence toward emergency reports of undocumented people in distress constitutes a state crime of historic proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe conflict of interest between Border Patrol\u2019s enforcement mission and its directive to search for and rescue those in distress on U.S. soil is precisely why international governing bodies mandate the strict separation of humanitarian and military activities during human rights emergencies,\u201d the report said. \u201cBorder Patrol as an agency, and Border Patrol agents in the field, cannot reasonably advance both humanitarian and political\/military objectives simultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, has spent years studying the culture of the Border Patrol and the consequences of its operations. He agreed that the Border Patrol\u2019s core identity and mission made it impossible for the agency to ever be considered a properly functioning humanitarian organization. Ever since the post-9\/11 creation of Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, a debate has raged in policy circles about how the federal government\u2019s immigration agencies should balance enforcement versus the provision of services, Heyman noted. Among those agencies, he said, \u201cBorder Patrol is the most purely enforcement minded.\u201d<\/p>\n From 2015 through 2016, Derechos Humanos received thousands of calls on a hotline established for migrants in distress; 456 of those calls were deemed emergencies, and 89 involved a call to the Border Patrol requesting that the agency conduct a search. The report found that the Border Patrol took no confirmed action in 60 percent of the cases where a search was requested. In 40 percent of those cases, the \u201cBorder Patrol directly stated to families and\/or humanitarian responders that the agency would not conduct any search or rescue response for a known distressed person,\u201d the report said. \u201cIn 16 of these instances, Border Patrol\u2019s direct refusal to respond to a reported emergency resulted in the distressed person\u2019s death or disappearance.\u201d<\/p>\n In a quarter of the emergency cases fielded by Derechos Humanos, the report found that the Border Patrol \u201cobstructed\u201d the process through a variety of means. Examples included agents directing families and humanitarian groups to nonworking phone numbers or providing them with false information, such as telling family members that their loved ones had been found alive when that was not true. In one case, aid volunteers sought assistance from the Border Patrol\u2019s \u201celite\u201d search and rescue team. According to the report, an agent told the volunteers it was \u201ctoo hot\u201d for the government team to operate. In another case, a volunteer called to report a missing teenager last seen in a dangerous area roughly 15 miles north of the border. According to the \u201cLeft to Die\u201d report, \u201cBorder Patrol told the responding Crisis Line volunteer that the agency would not activate a search for the unaccompanied minor because they \u2018didn\u2019t work that far south.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Customs and Border Protection,\u00a0the nation\u2019s largest police agency, did not respond to a list of questions nor make available an official to discuss the No More Deaths\/Derechos Humanos report.<\/p>\n In the days leading up to Wednesday\u2019s report, CBP did, however, publish a\u00a0feature-length article<\/a> in Frontline, the agency\u2019s in-house magazine, touting the Border Patrol\u2019s humanitarian efforts. The article noted how extraordinarily deadly the summer of 2020 was for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border; as The Intercept reported in January<\/a>, Arizona closed out 2020 having nearly broken its 10-year record for most migrant remains recovered in a single year. The article noted that CBP personnel \u201csaved more than 5,000 people and conducted 1,400 search and rescue operations in fiscal year 2020.\u201d The figures were accompanied by a 2,400-word profile of the agency\u2019s Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue team \u2014 \u201cbetter known as BORSTAR\u201d \u2014 while casting all blame for deaths on the border on smugglers and showing how the federal government is responding.<\/p>\n It was precisely the kind of public framing targeted in the No More Deaths\/Derechos Humanos report. \u201cWhat those measures are ultimately aimed at is legitimizing the agency that\u2019s actually causing the crisis and sort of positioning them as somehow the saviors,\u201d Max Granger, a longtime humanitarian aid volunteer and co-author of the report, told The Intercept. The evidence shows that the Border Patrol\u2019s sought-after legitimacy is wholly unwarranted, he argued: \u201cWhat we found in the report is that Border Patrol as an agency is twice as likely to cause a person to become lost and in distress in the desert than they are to rescue anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n A lack of<\/u> transparency as to how the Border Patrol defines and tracks its \u201crescues\u201d makes a serious problem much worse, the No More Deaths\/Derechos Humanos report argued. Examining a sample of\u00a0about 160 press releases describing Border Patrol \u201crescues\u201d from 2015 to 2016, the organizations concluded that more than half \u201cactually describe a routine arrest,\u201d including a 2018 \u201crescue\u201d in which Border Patrol agents in Arizona chased an 18-year-old through the wilderness with a helicopter, causing him to nearly drown in a cattle pond. \u201cAt least 91 of the 456\u201d emergency cases logged by the Derechos Humanos crisis line involved a so-called Border Patrol chase and scatter incident, when agents descend on groups of migrants, often with helicopters, to break them up so they are easier to catch. The report said: \u201cIn other words, approximately one in five emergencies involved distressed individuals having been chased but not arrested by Border Patrol agents in remote areas.\u201d<\/p>\nThe report found that the Border Patrol took no confirmed action in 60 percent of the cases where a search was requested.<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cWhat we found in the report is that Border Patrol as an agency is twice as likely to cause a person to become lost and in distress in the desert than they are to rescue anyone.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n