Dissapeared, Part I: Deadly Apprehension Methods. The consequences of Chase & Scatter in the Wilderness

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Part I of this three-part report investigates the US Border Patrol’s deadly apprehension methods in wilderness areas. Chase and Scatter is divided into two sections.

In the first section, we discuss two major aspects of the apprehension method of chase.

Environmental Hazards: Environmental hazards during pursuit often lead to injury and death. Border Patrol agents chase border crossers through the remote terrain and utilize the landscape as a weapon to slow down, injure, and apprehend them. We show how chases lead to heat exhaustion and dehydration, blisters and sprains, injuries due to falls, and drownings.

Assaults by Border Patrol: Border Patrol violence as another outcome of chase. Border Patrol agents regularly assault border crossers at the culmination of a chase. Assault then contributes to a violent cycle in which border crossers flee from both interdiction and potential serious injury and death and agents, in turn, often respond with escalating aggression. We examine how chase in remote areas commonly results in excessive use of force. In our survey, tackles, beatings, Tasers, dog attacks, and assault with vehicles were all reportedly employed by the Border Patrol against border crossers during chase.

In the second section, we examine the deadly and traumatic outcomes of scatter.

The scattering of border crossers causes spatial disorientation, separation from one’s guide and companions, loss of supplies and belongings, and exposure to the hazards of hostile terrain. In the remote wilderness, this directly leads to death and disappearance.

Through analysis of surveys of border crossers and stories from the Derechos Humanos Missing Migrant Crisis Line’s database, our team finds that the Border Patrol’s practice of chasing and scattering border crossers is indisputably responsible for human deaths and disappearances. Despite the clear and mortal danger associated with these apprehension tactics, chase remains a primary apprehension method of the US Border Patrol.

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