Border Patrol Says It’s Catching Criminal Migrants, But Its Internal Records Say Otherwise

Failures

from the looking-busy,-doing-nothing dept

It’s telling that the Trump Administration thinks it needs access to millions of taxpayer records to locate and capture “dangerous” immigrants. Most criminals don’t file taxes or hold down regular day jobs. On top of that, this undermines the constant claim made by awful people that immigrants are lazy interlopers who come here to help themselves to social services without contributing to the nation’s bottom line.

With both the rhetoric and the activity amped up due to Trump’s demand for thousands of deportations every day, it’s all but impossible for border control agencies (ICE, US Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection) to live up to the hateful fantasies of those in power.

But they’re still trying. And it’s probably because many of those at the top either know their ongoing employment relies on it or they’ve fully bought into the myths spread by the loudmouthed bigots currently running the country.

It’s not just a national infection. It trickles all the way down to the local levels. In Kern County, California, there just doesn’t seem to be that much illegal immigration happening at the moment, as Sergio Olmos and Wendy Fry report for CalMatters:

It was quiet on the border. A Border Patrol agent named James Lee was parked in the shade next to a 30-foot fence in Calexico. The windows of his SUV were rolled up, the engine making that noise when it’s idle for a long time while the air conditioning is running. “We haven’t had any crossing in the last few days,” Lee said. 

At the height of illegal border crossings in 2023, Border Patrol encountered 3.2 million people. But now the southern border is desolate. Lee is one of around 1,000 agents in the El Centro sector, which has seen a 91% decrease in encounters compared to the same month last year.

You would think agencies like the US Border Patrol would be happy to see a decline in crossings, a trailing indicator demonstrating the aggressive words and actions of the Trump Administration are having the intended deterrent effect.

But a lack of border crossings isn’t stopping the Border Patrol from roving further inland to harass and detain migrant workers in the area. Sergeant Gregory Bovino still thinks he’s the best thing that’s happened to his particular stretch of the border.

Border Patrol said it arrested 78 people in what it called “Operation Return to Sender,” but provided few details. Most of the official information about the raid came from Bovino’s Facebook comments. He posted blurred photos of three Latino men alongside a photo of 33 lbs of marijuana in the trunk of a car. He wrote, “Here in the #PremierSector we go the extra mile – or 500 of them – to protect our nation and communities from bad people and bad things.” 

Border Patrol also made this claim in the same post:

Two child rapists were caught the first day with more to come.

In the comments, it added these details:

78 arrests (all subjects unlawfully present in the U.S.) The nationality/citizenship of those arrested were from Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, and China.

One subject arrested was a convicted sex offender convicted of raping an 8 year old girl.

Another subject had an active warrant from the Visalia Sheriff’s Department for a sex offense against a child.

One subject had a warrant for being a felon in possession of a weapon out of Tulare County. He was turned over to the Kern County Sheriff’s Department for extradition to Tulare County. A detainer was placed on this subject so we can take him back into custody on pending federal charges.

Three separate Marijuana seizures: 33.01 lbs., 3.1 lbs., and 30.7 grams of personal use.

Four separate methamphetamine seizures totaling 7.1 grams.

Multiple DUI convictions among those arrested, including some that included hit and run and injury enhancements.

Other criminal histories of those arrested included: failure to appear, tampering with a vehicle, petty theft, felony drug possession, vandalism, burglary, inflicting injury on spouse, and child abuse convictions amongst others.

Bad hombres, indeed. You’d think this much arrest activity would have generated a paper trail. But CalMatters — working with two other transparency organizations — found nearly nothing that supported the Border Patrol’s narrative.

[A] CalMatters investigation, in partnership with Evident and Bellingcat, found that Border Patrol officials misrepresented the very basics of their high-profile, large-scale immigration raid. Data obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection reveal that Border Patrol had no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested. 

In a spreadsheet provided by the agency, under “Criminal History,” all but one entry contains the following passage: “Criminal and/or immigration history was not known prior to the encounter.”

At best, this means the Border Patrol — under Sgt. Bovino — is simply accosting anyone who possibly looks like an immigrant before trying to figure out whether they have a criminal record. At worst, this means the assertions made in the Border Patrol Facebook post aren’t actually true.

But even at its best, the data obtained shows Bovino himself is lying when he claims his anti-immigration efforts are targeted.

The records directly contradict what Bovino told us in the interview. He maintained his agents went after specific targets, “many of which … were prior deports, already had immigration history, criminal history.”

The empty spreadsheet says otherwise. What it says is that Bovino’s unit did the opposite of what he claimed: it went roaming around anywhere it thought it might find some immigrants. The claims made in the Facebook post are simply the Border Patrol compiling a list of ends to justify its highly questionable means.

According to people who actually live in the sector patrolled by Bovino and his officers, the most common tactic observed was random traffic stops of “brown” people and hanging out near farms to search vehicles bringing workers to fields. It definitely was never a targeted operation, other than the fact that it “targeted” people who looked kind of Mexican. It’s nothing more than unilaterally declaring certain skin tones to be inherently suspicious. That the Border Patrol managed to gin up 78 arrests indicates nothing more than it harassed many multiples of that number before it took a victory lap on Facebook.

Filed Under: border patrol, california, gregory bovino, immigration, kern county
Companies: bellingcat, calmatters, evident