The Department of Homeland Security shutdown has officially passed one month as lawmakers continue to debate limits on ICE’s use of force. Though we’ve arrived at this legislative standoff due to aggressive, and sometimes fatal, immigration enforcement actions in cities in our country’s interior, for communities along the U.S.–Mexico border, such abuses are nothing new. As I reveal through my academic research, immigration agents have operated with near-total impunity at the border for decades.
I uncovered patterns of excessive violence, coercion, and abuse at land ports of entry, through which more than 200 million people including workers, students, and visitors legally enter the U.S. every single year. The link between agents’ actions on the streets of American cities and the way they operate at the southern border is inevitable—yet something the current conversation about ICE and potential reforms overlooks.
Take Antonio for example, a Mexican student from Tijuana who I interviewed for my research. Antonio explained that he learned from a young age that he had to comply with Customs and Border Patrol’s (CBP) authority, even when the agents’ practices infringed on his rights: “Basically, my mother instilled in me from a young age how CBP officers could do anything. They can take away my visa, they can beat me up, they can throw tear gas at me, they can insult me, and we can’t do anything.”
When such misconduct occurs, agents often intimidate and retaliate against people who cross the border to discourage them from filing complaints. Commuters and migrants are coerced to remain compliant even in situations of clear abuse. That parallels tactics used against legal observers of immigration enforcers in U.S cities—approaches that have stirred outrage among Americans across the political spectrum.
But even when complaints are filed, the current system protects agents. Investigators for the American Immigration Council revealed that 97 percent of grievances filed by migrants after suffering abuse from Border Patrol agents resulted in “no action taken.” This impunity is also evident in the lack of accountability in cases of fatal shootings involving migrants and U.S. citizens, deadly and reckless Border Patrol vehicle pursuits under Texas’ Operation Lone Star, and cross-border shootings by Border Patrol against Mexicans.
Despite the prevalence of lethal force and abuse at the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, they rarely receive national attention—though they resemble agents’ aggressive approaches in Minnesota, Chicago, and elsewhere that have shocked the nation. Broadening the public’s and our lawmakers’ understanding of the violence committed by immigration enforcement agents is crucial to create much needed systemic change, not only in our cities but also at the border.
For instance, the recent documentary Critical Incident: Death at the Border, focuses on Border Patrol’s cover-up of the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a long-time San Diego resident who was in custody at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. In 2010, Border Patrol agents brutally tortured, beat, and suffocated Rojas. These injuries left him brain-dead at a San Diego hospital, where he died from his injuries three days later.
To finally stop such abuses from happening at our border, structural reforms are needed. One place to start is to make it easier to file complaints when abuse occurs, ensure those complaints are taken seriously, and ensure misconduct investigations are fully transparent through CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Meanwhile, in cities far from the border, it’s important to prohibit immigration enforcement agents from driving unmarked vehicles or wearing masks during their operations, which limits legal observers’ ability to identify and document civil and human rights violations.
But if lawmakers are truly invested in addressing ICE’s lethal practices, their vote should not further expand DHS’s already enormous budget, with the ultimate goal to defund and abolish ICE. The struggle of citizens killed in cities like Minneapolis is the struggle of the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, and vice versa.
Estefanía Castañeda Pérez, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. Her academic research examines border violence, race and ethnicity, and policing.