Border Patrol agents are loading this group of about 20 migrants onto this bus.
This is what it’s like to be caught by the U.S. Border Patrol –
Whoa, whoa, wait, you got someone climbing the fence right there, go!
– a harrowing experience that’s not often captured on camera.
I’m in the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily policed border region along the U.S.-Mexico border,
where this is a common scene.
Here, people risk their lives every day to enter the U.S. by crossing this dangerous river.
And the first faces they encounter are often Border Patrol agents, like Agent Jesse Moreno.
Border Patrol has long been plagued by accusations of abuse
and mistreatment of migrants, many of whom are fleeing poverty,
violence and climate disasters in search of safety.
Hearing how dangerous this journey is,
and then seeing super young children and a pregnant minor here.
It's...
It’s a lot.
We got rare access to a ride-along with Border Patrol
to see what it's really like to police the border
and to hear from those who are paying the price in hopes of a better life.
Has anyone from Border Patrol apologized to you for killing your daughter?
So it’s 6 a.m. and Border Patrol agents have apprehended a group of migrants
that were found here in the brush in the Rio Grande Valley.
Within moments of beginning our ride-along,
we witnessed Border Patrol agents detain a group of migrants.
This agent has technology that’s able to scan the area at night
and see if there’s other people out there.
Most of these young men are from Central America
and have just crossed the Rio Grande River from the Mexican city of Reynosa.
They told us they paid smugglers thousands of dollars to get here.
This is Agent Jesse Moreno, who took us on the ride-along.
I'm sure they were hoping not to be caught,
but we do have our agents out here, vigilant.
We have technology infrastructure
to be able to apprehend these subjects from entering the U.S. illegally.
He told us from here, the group will be taken to a processing facility
to be fingerprinted and inputted into their system.
How old are you?
This 20-year-old from Guatemala agreed to speak with us on camera
before being taken into Border Patrol custody.
Why did you want to come to the U.S.?
How much did you pay to make this journey?
Because he’s a young adult, he and the rest of this group will likely be immediately sent back.
The Biden administration has rolled back some Trump-era restrictions
on who can enter the U.S. from the southern border.
Unaccompanied children and most families are no longer being immediately expelled.
But most solo adults are,
and the administration’s message remains one of deterrence.
I want to be clear
to folks in this region
who are thinking about making
that dangerous trek
to the United States-Mexico border.
Do not come.
But that hasn’t stopped people.
This year, the U.S. is on track to see the largest number of crossings
at the southern border in two decades.
And it’s here in the Rio Grande Valley where more people are apprehended than anywhere else.
We can see some footprints right there.
Somebody might have tried to
put up a ladder here and then tried to go over.
They carry a ladder with them?
They will have like a little makeshift ladder,
but sometimes they’ll put, like, branches,
and then they’ll use like a human ladder, so where
one person will stand there and then the other person will get on their shoulders
and then try to jump this fence.
Whoa, whoa, wait, you got someone climbing the fence right there, go!
There's more — There's probably more!
Over the course of the day, we saw what happens when Border Patrol detains people:
First, an agent takes their information and has them place the few belongings they're carrying,
like a passport or a phone, into a plastic bag.
Then, they’re ordered to remove their shoelaces.
We were told this is to prevent them from running away or hurting agents or themselves.
Next, they’re either handcuffed or zip-tied to one another.
From there, they get transported to a Border Patrol processing center
or are immediately expelled.
The way that these individuals came across right now
puts my life at risk, your life at risk and everybody else's lives at risk
coming across in that manner.
Did you think these guys are putting our lives at risk?
It seems like they just want a better life for themselves.
They can be putting our lives at risk.
Border Patrol says their mission is to prevent,
“terrorists and terrorists’ weapons” from entering the country
in addition to preventing “illegal entry of individuals.”
They also say they're on the “front line” of the war on drugs.
But most illegal drugs that make their way into the U.S.
are actually smuggled through legal ports of entry.
And by and large, the migrants that cross the border are not criminals.
In 2020, less than 1% of people detained by Border Patrol had a criminal history.
And the most common conviction was illegal entry or reentry into the U.S.
He's apprehending someone right now.
These men are from Honduras and told us they’ve been traveling for two and half months.
They were hoping to join their children, who are already in the U.S.
My only crime was to come here to survive.
How do you feel now that they’re going to take you?
I understand that most people are coming across the border illegally to make for a better life
for themselves than in their home countries.
But the thing is that they need to do it in a legal manner. There is a process for it to be done.
What is that legal manner right now?
The legal manner is to apply for some sort of citizenship.
But many people crossing are seeking asylum,
which is legal under U.S. and international law, and requires being on U.S. soil.
We are racing behind Border Patrol right now.
They heard about a large group of families and we’re headed to the scene.
And unlike all the other apprehensions we saw today,
these are people who actually want to present themselves to Border Patrol.
The group included families with babies, as well as unaccompanied children.
One was a 15-year-old who told us she was nine months pregnant.
Everyone was visibly exhausted and overwhelmed by the journey.
Why did you want to come to the U.S.?
You know, having some background, hearing how dangerous this journey is,
some people travel for weeks if not months to make it here. They risk their lives doing so.
And then seeing super young children and a baby and a pregnant minor here.
It's...
It’s a lot.
It’s a lot to think of everything they’ve gone through and still what lies ahead.
That’s because what lies ahead for families like these is unclear.
Across the southern border, policies are applied unevenly,
so it’s not a guarantee that a family will get to stay.
Some might get released into the U.S. to await their court date,
while others will get immediately expelled.
The ride-along offered us only a tiny glimpse into how Border Patrol operates.
I wanted to know what it’s like when a camera crew isn’t around.
So I went to a nearby shelter to hear from people who had just been released
from Border Patrol custody hours earlier.
This mother from Guatemala said she crossed the river that morning
carrying her 5-year-old son on her back.
She says Border Patrol agents threw away all their belongings, including her son’s warm clothes.
And for every piece of clothing [the agent] would throw away, he would cry.
She says she and a group of migrants slept under a bridge for several hours
under the watchful eye of agents while waiting to be transferred to the shelter.
Another woman I spoke to said she traveled with her 5-year-old daughter
and left two other children behind in El Salvador.
She says she was overcome with relief when she spotted Border Patrol vehicles.
How did Border Patrol treat you when you were in their custody?
One lady asked a Border Patrol agent about her 9-month-old son
A Border Patrol agent said to me that people like you should apply the “legal” way
from your home countries to come to the U.S.
Do you even know how to do that or if it’s possible?
We put these allegations to Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection.
In an email, a spokesperson wrote,
But what the women told us they experienced isn’t unique, according to Shaw Drake of the ACLU.
The abuse, it really is widespread based on the evidence that we have.
So I think that the typical experience with Border Patrol unfortunately
can be characterized as a negative one.
Shaw attributes this to a set of policies known as "prevention through deterrence,"
introduced in the ’90s under President Clinton.
And so many Border Patrol agents look at their job as deterring future migrants from coming.
And part of that is making sure the experience
of the migrants that they encounter are as bad as possible.
That has been a failed policy from the beginning.
It's actually never resulted in less people coming to the border.
And what it has resulted in is more, more deaths.
I asked Agent Moreno about this.
Do you guys go by a policy of deterrence here
so that they never come back?
No. Our agents are humane and professional.
I don't see when agents are being cruel or being ugly to individuals.
I believe that a number of our agents, or I mean, all of our agents
are going to treat individuals with professionalism.
But the facts tell a different story.
There are extensive reports of rape, harassment, medical neglect
and verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Border Patrol agents.
One report found it’s “virtually impossible" to assess the extent of corruption or misconduct
because of the lack of public information.
And a government report found that CBP does not have reliable information on deaths
and “has not consistently reported deaths of individuals in custody to Congress.”
What we know is that since 2010, at least 120 people have died
as a result of an encounter with a U.S. border agent.
That includes at least six children who have died in Border Patrol custody.
And six people in Mexico who were killed by Border Patrol agents
who fired from the U.S. side of the border,
including a 16-year-old named José Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was shot eight times in the back.
It also includes the 2018 killing of Claudia Patricia Gómez González, an unarmed Guatemalan woman.
No Border Patrol agent has ever been convicted of an on-duty killing.
Has anyone from Border Patrol or the U.S. government apologized to you and your family
for killing your daughter?
Gilberto and Lidia’s daughter Claudia was just 20 years old
when she left her village in Guatemala for the U.S.
What is the last thing you remember saying to Claudia?
Just minutes after she crossed into Rio Bravo, Texas,
Claudia was shot in the head by a Border Patrol agent named Romualdo Barrera.
A woman who lived in the area filmed the aftermath of the shooting.
She recorded Claudia’s motionless body face down in the grass,
then went live on Facebook as she followed the agents.
Border Patrol initially released a statement saying Claudia
and other migrants she was with attacked the agent using “blunt objects.”
But after the video went viral, the government changed their story,
saying the agent was “assaulted” and “rushed,”
with no mention of blunt objects, or that Claudia was the attacker.
What do you think would have happened if there was no video evidence of what exactly went down?
The ACLU of Texas filed a $100 million claim on behalf of Claudia’s family, which is still pending.
A few weeks after I spoke with her parents, the government announced
it will not be pressing criminal charges against the agent.
A CBP spokesperson declined to comment on that decision
and wouldn't confirm whether the agent who killed Claudia is still employed with Border Patrol.
The hundreds of thousands of migrants who make this journey every year are aware that the risks
don’t end when they cross the border.
But many will continue to do whatever it takes to have the possibility of a life on this side.
Hey guys, it's Dena. Thanks for watching,
and there’s so much I didn’t get to cover
in this video when it comes to allegations
against the U.S. Border Patrol.
So in the next video, I head to California
to interview a former senior Border Patrol agent
who is speaking out against what she says is a sexist, racist and corrupt agency.
Make sure you check out that video next,
and let me know in the comments what you thought of this one.