More call for investigations into special Border Patrol units

SAN DIEGO — More families whose loved ones were killed by border officials are calling for investigations into secretive Border Patrol units that have been accused of covering up what really happened in use-of-force cases.

The units are known by different names in different sectors of the border — Critical Incident Team, Critical Incident Investigative Team or Evidence Collection Team among them. Advocates have unearthed documents from cases spanning years that suggest regardless of name and location, these teams have worked to cover up wrongdoing by border officials when they kill or otherwise use lethal force. According to an internal presentation about the San Diego team, their job was to mitigate officials’ liability.

Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency to Border Patrol, has maintained that the teams are there to help other investigating agencies in such cases, but police documents show that these teams have impeded or even taken over investigations by local law enforcement. The teams do not have authorization from Congress to investigate fellow agents’ lethal uses of force.

CBP did not respond to a request for comment. The agency has previously said that it has “a multi-tiered oversight framework in place to address allegations of misconduct involving agency personnel.”

“The U.S. Border Patrol maintains teams with specialized evidence collection capabilities across the southwest border,” an unnamed spokesperson previously told the Union-Tribune. “These teams consist of highly trained personnel available to respond around the clock to collect and process evidence related to CBP enforcement activities as well as critical incidents. In the case of serious incidents involving CBP personnel, members of these teams are sometimes called upon to assist investigators… This is a vitally important capability as many critical incidents involving CBP operations occur in remote locations where other agencies may be unwilling or unable to respond.”

Earlier this year, two congressional committees opened an investigation and asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the Border Patrol units.

Vicki Gaubeca, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the organization supporting the families’ call for action, said that so far the committees have sent letters requesting documents and have only received a letter in response describing who the special teams are and which use of force cases are reportable. Gaubeca said her organization will continue to call for a Congressional hearing on the units.

Attorneys working on an international human rights case first raised public awareness about the units after reviewing police records about the investigation into the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the San Diego border. The records showed that the Border Patrol team tampered with the case, and the family has since asked the district attorney to charge those agents with obstruction of justice.

“For the case of my husband, there hasn’t been justice,” said Maria Puga, Hernández Rojas’ widow, in Spanish. “We want these individuals who participated in this investigation to be investigated themselves. What they did is not OK. They didn’t let everything be how it should be.”

Now other families have joined Puga to call for more action to investigate and dismantle the teams.