The fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has captured the attention of the nation, with the suburban St. Louis community descending nightly into chaos. Since Brown's death on Aug. 9, confrontations with police have escalated, as law enforcement officers have unleashed tear gas on gathering crowds and arrested media members documenting the demonstrations. Scenes of armored vehicles roving city streets and images of battle-ready cops have raised questions about whether the militarization of law enforcement agencies has gone too far.

On the southern border between U.S. and Mexico, however, residents have grown accustomed to the expanding presence of law enforcement. In the last two decades, the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents has ballooned from 4,139 in 1992 to 21,391 last year. In addition to sheer staff expansion, the agency has seen an influx of military-grade weapons and an increase in high-tech surveillance. As the largest uniformed law enforcement agency in the country, U.S. Customs and Border Protection operates a fleet of unarmed drones and has received helicopters once used by the Army.



"In the last 20 years, we have seen a quite remarkable expansion of Border Patrol," says Todd Miller, author of the book, "Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security." " You could make the argument that it has been transformed into a standing army in the domestic contours of the United States. They have all kinds of new technologies. They have some surplus military equipment."

Like the local police department in Ferguson, the agency has also faced scrutiny for its use of lethal force. Between 2005 and 2014, Border Patrol agents killed 46 individuals, according to a lawsuit filed against agency personnel. And an independent review of the agency’s use of lethal force questions multiple instances in which there may have been too harsh of a response to rock-throwers and moving vehicles.

In a review of 67 lethal force cases that occurred between 2010 and 2012, the Police Executive Research Forum found that “too many cases [did] not appear to meet the test of objective reasonableness with regard to the use of deadly force.” The report found that agents often responded with deadly force when they could have easily removed themselves from harm’s way. It also said agents shot at rock-throwers instead of retreating to safety and pursued moving vehicles and fired weapons when they should have simply gotten out of the way.

The review also highlighted another troubling trend within the agency: While instances of lethal force were noted by the department, the report said it was not clear if Customs and Border Protection "consistently and thoroughly reviews all use of deadly force incidents." In an exclusive interview published this month by The Center for Investigative Reporting, James Tomsheck – the ousted head of Customs and Border Protection's internal affairs division – said seven of 28 deaths that occurred since 2010 were “highly suspect.”

“The Border Patrol has a self-identity of a paramilitary border security force and not that of a law enforcement organization,” Tomsheck said.

Tomsheck declined to discuss any case specifically, but one of the deaths that has faced intense scrutiny along the border involves an unarmed young man. Yet unlike in Ferguson, the death of a Mexican teenager has gone largely unnoticed by the U.S. public.

Around 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2012, Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez had just finished playing a game of basketball with friends when the 16-year-old started down the sidewalk on Calle Internacional, a thoroughfare that runs along the Mexican side of the border with Nogales, Arizona. According to a lawsuit filed by his mother, Rodriguez was standing about 50 feet below a rocky cliff and the steel border fence when he was shot 10 times, almost entirely from behind. With nothing but a cellphone in his pocket, the teen died in a pool of his own blood. Photographs taken from the scene days later show dark stains in the street.

After the incident, Border Patrol officials issued a statement saying the agency had been pursuing two suspected smugglers who dropped drugs on the U.S. side of the border and fled back into Mexico.

“Subjects at the scene then began assaulting the agents with rocks,” said the Border Patrol statement. “After verbal commands from agents to cease were ignored, one agent then discharged his service firearm.”

So far, the Border Patrol has not issued any indication that Rodriguez was directly involved in the rock-throwing incident. Rodriguez’s mother, Araceli Rodriguez, is seeking damages in her suit and claiming her son was entirely innocent. But no criminal charges have been filed, and nearly two years after her son’s death, she still does not know the name of the agent who killed her son.

Her lawyers are seeking to have the name revealed. Without knowing who is responsible, it's impossible for Araceli Rodriguez to know whether any action has been taken against the agent.

Border Patrol officials did not return requests for comment to U.S. News.

“Border Patrol is very private about what actions they take with personnel,” says Juanita Molina, executive director of the Border Action Network. “That has been what is so unsatisfying to the community and the families. There is no resolution. No one has gone to jail. No one has been publicly fired. There is no public face to these grave injustices.”

In May, Customs and Border Protection released an amended use-of-force policy that calls on border agents to carry more nonlethal devices and to undergo additional training.

Still, if less severe allegations of abuse are any indication, the Border Patrol rarely takes action against employees accused of neglect. A recent investigation by the American Immigration Council examined more than 800 complaints issued against Customs and Border Protection personnel, including allegations ranging from sexual assault to verbal attacks.



The report concluded that “CPB officials rarely [took] action." In 97 percent of cases where the agency issued a judgment in a case, the result was "no action taken," according to the report.

In communities along the southwest border, outrage toward law enforcement has been relatively quiet compared to the violent outbursts on the streets of Ferguson. In the U.S., deaths at the hands of Border Patrol agents have sparked little or no reaction at all. Part of that, activists say, is because Latino communities along the border already are living in the shadows and are hesitant to speak out.

“We have communities being affected that already feel marginalized,” says Luis Torres, director of policy and legislation for the League of United Latin American Citizens. “They are already living on the fringe. They are very hesitant to report any kinds of abuse.”

Experts say it would take a greater national reaction to raise awareness of deaths at the border. But as long as immigration is a hot-button political topic, that’s unlikely to happen.

“There is a disconnect. This issue gets too caught up in the polarizing immigration debate,” says Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing Araceli Rodriguez. “[Jose] Rodriguez wasn’t trying to get into the U.S. when he was shot. This was a town where he lives. He was walking home.”