New York Times
By Julia Preston
September 18, 2014
Federal border security officials, who have been sharply criticized for failing to respond to accusations of abuse by border agents, have new authority to conduct criminal investigations of claims of excessive force or corruption by those agents, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday.
The official, R. Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the agency had also begun to test body cameras for use by agents in the field. He also named William J. Bratton, the New York City police commissioner, and Karen P. Tandy, the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to lead an “integrity advisory panel” of current and former law enforcement officials to counsel the agency on how to detect and prevent misconduct by its employees.
The measures are the latest in an effort by Mr. Kerlikowske to change the agency’s practices after two reports by outside groups found that it had mishandled inquiries of shootings by agents and ignored hundreds of complaints by immigrants about their treatment while in custody.
Since the border agency was created in 2003, officials said, it has not been able to carry out criminal investigations internally, with other agencies in the Department of Homeland Security charged with that responsibility. The department secretary, Jeh C. Johnson, has now granted that power directly to the agency, a move Mr. Kerlikowske said would lead to “more timely and transparent” responses to abuse accusations.
“There is no room in C.B.P., none whatsoever, when there are incidents that violate the public trust,” he said, referring to his agency by its initials.
The commissioner said he established a new review procedure for all incidents involving the use of force by agents, including a mobile team that would quickly gather evidence and start an inquiry. He pledged that his agency, which is notorious for its silences about those incidents, would be more forthcoming.
“It is my goal that someone at a high level can answer quickly with the basic facts about what occurred,” Mr. Kerlikowske said at a briefing with reporters in Washington. With more than 60,000 employees, Customs and Border Protection is the country’s largest law enforcement agency.
Officials have bought a “large number” of body cameras and are testing them at a facility in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. Testing by Border Patrol agents will begin Oct. 1 at a training center in Artesia, N.M. Mr. Kerlikowske did not say when the cameras would be used by agents along the border. He said the cameras raised difficult privacy issues for agents and also for some victims of abuse.
Several shootings by border agents have involved people who were across the border in Mexico, and migrants have claimed they were struck or coerced by agents after they were caught crossing illegally in remote areas.
In recent months, the agency’s internal affairs officials have examined 876 cases raised in reports by the two groups, the Police Executive Research Forum and the American Immigration Council. Mark Morgan, the head of the internal affairs office, said 11 cases remained under criminal investigation by other agencies, while 155 cases had been reopened for further noncriminal review.
Some advocacy groups cautiously praised the new measures.
“This is a positive first step to a more thorough and accountable procedure to investigate abuses and misconduct at our borders,” said Jennifer Podkul, a senior officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission.
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