Immigration advocacy group clashes with border patrol over body cameras

An immigration advocacy group is pushing for U.S. border agents to begin wearing body cameras to document their interactions with the public.

But the advocacy group’s recommendations come as a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) review concluded that agents and officers should not be required to wear body cameras.

The National Immigration Forum released a report Friday finding that body cameras would increase transparency and enhance safety for both the public and the nation’s more than 45,000 customs officers and border patrol agents.

James Lopez, one of the report’s authors and a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officer, said during a press call on Monday that regular use of body cameras would help CBP “evaluate the use of force — ‘Was it justified? Was it reasonable?’”

The use of body cameras “won’t be perfect,” he said. “But it will be better than what we have.”

On the same day that the advocacy organization released its study, reports surfaced that CBP conducted its own review, concluding after a year that body cameras shouldn’t be required.

CBP, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, determined that body cameras would distract agents from their jobs and hurt their morale and that the equipment would be unsuited to the hot, dusty conditions in which agents often work, according to people familiar with the review who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been made public.

The agency stopped short of ruling out body cameras entirely, instead calling for more analysis before they are widely distributed.

In contrast, the authors of National Immigration Forum’s report said body cameras are already being used in varied terrains around the country and that technology has advanced enough to create cameras suitable to rugged conditions.

“We conclude that the benefits of body cameras to CBP and the public greatly outweigh any of the potential drawbacks,” the report said.

Police use of body cameras is growing but is still limited. Dozens of agencies across the country have begun testing the cameras since unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, unleashed criticism of police tactics.

President Barack Obama supports the use of police body cameras, and his administration has pledged millions of dollars to local law enforcement agencies to support such programs.

CBP has come under criticism over some instances of use of force. The Southern Border Communities Coalition, which has strongly criticized the federal agency over its use of force, said agents and officers have killed 40 people since January 2010. 

In one fatal incident in December 2013, a 58-year-old man died in Border Patrol custody after being arrested for possession of and intent to sell drugs. A medical examiner’s report on the incident said the officers thought the man was faking a seizure before his death at a holding facility near the South California section of Interstate 8.

CBP commissioned a 2013 report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit group of law enforcement experts, which was highly critical of the agency’s policies and tactics.

During the last three months of 2014, CBP tested cameras in simulated environments at a border patrol training academy in New Mexico and other locations. From January to May, it expanded testing to 90 agents and officers who volunteered across the country to use the cameras on the job.

Widespread deployment has hinged on union approval, which was always in question. The National Border Patrol Council, for one, expressed concerns that supervisors might use the videos to retaliate against agents they wanted to discipline or force from their jobs.

Al Jazeera with The Associated Press