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Notes:

• Menon, Aisha. “‘I Can’t Breathe:’ Medical examiner says ICE detainees death is likely a homicide.” VECHRON. January 16, 2026.

• “GAO: $1.3 billion ICE detention labeled Camp East Montana facility plagued by waste, safety gaps and contracting missteps.” Homeland Security Today. June 9, 2026.

• “Questions follow reported ICE facility overdoses.” El Paso Matters. June 19, 2026.

• Cuevas, Eduardo. “Deaths in ICE custody hit record high under Trump administration, agency says.” USA Today. April 18, 2026.

• Moore, Robert. “Six children in Border Patrol care, Democrats in Congress want to know why.” Propublica. January 13, 2020.

• “New data: 73% of ICE detainees have no criminal record.” The CATO Institute. November 25, 2025.

• “Experts question Noem calling Good a ‘domestic terrorist.” PBS News. January 10, 2026.

• Ong, Jonathan et al. “Latino ICE arrests under Trump.” ACLU. October 2025.

• Pitzer, Andrea Next Comes What podcast. “Private profits soaring 700% under Trump.” YouTube.

• Abbott, Jeff. “U.S. Rep. Escobar pushes for answers at ICE detention site after report.” El Paso Times. June 24, 2026.

• “Prison labor and the Thirteenth Amendment.” Equal Justice Initiative. February 1, 2016.

Some of you have expressed regret for donating to their GoFundMe campaign that claimed the money would be used to provide support for those of us volunteering to search for deceased migrants. If you feel ripped off by this, you are not alone. I do as well. At the end of this piece, I will provide you with information on what we can do about this.

This is the backstory of what happened.

I want to be clear that I still cannot say with 100% certainty that BSAR is grifting off the deaths of migrants. I cannot see their 990 tax reports for their 501c3 because they do not file those forms claiming they are taking in less than $25,000 a year. So, I have no idea what they spend their donations on. I have my suspicions because of my most recent experience with them, but I cannot say definitively what they do with donations.

Your donations to my GoFundMe paid for my flight from San Diego to El Paso and back, a modest car rental and a basic hotel room right on the border. All other expenses such as food, gas, museum tours and other things were paid for out of my own pocket. Here’s a not so lovely view of the hideous wall from my room.

Prior to the BSAR Para las Madres search, I knew only that James has had arguments with every group he has ever worked with on the southern border. Every time I have encountered him, he has spoken ill of the other search groups, of many law enforcement agencies and officers, of academics trying to get to the bottom of why so many women are dying in the Chihuahua Desert west of El Paso. He also spoke poorly of every media outlet who interviewed him. To hear him talk, no one but he and Abbey care about the women left in the desert. It is my experience in life that when someone does this, the problem is often with the accuser and not the accused.

At the same time, the truth is that James and Abbey have found a lot of deceased migrants. Now that I have experienced a bit of the Chihuahua Desert, I realize that literally anyone can go out to there and find bodies if they walk around long enough. These are not searches based off of evidence or distress calls. BSAR combs the desert in grid patterns. If there’s a body out there, they eventually run into them. This is because it has been the policy of the U.S. Border Patrol and the federal government for over thirty years to limit who can cross legally, intentionally pushing them out to the most dangerous areas to cross and then letting the terrain disappear the bodies. That is called United States immigration deterrence and it is policy that both sides of the aisle have enthusiastically supported.

No one had suggested to me that BSAR were dishonest or grifting until after I wrote and published my first piece on them yesterday. What was said is that they were verbally abusive and disregarded the Latino and Indigenous communities’ concerns. And yet, I went because of the articles about the high percentages of female bodies that reporters and non-profit groups continued raising. I never volunteered with BSAR or promoted their work until the data, forensics anthropologists and reputable media outlets like Rolling Stone reported that what they were finding was a human rights atrocity. When I promoted BSAR’s GoFundMe for the search I recently took part in, it was to provide the assistance he claimed he needed to “support the volunteer searchers.”

I only learned that BSAR was not providing volunteer searchers with aid once I stepped into the desert with them. I have never seen any reports suggesting this was a possibility and would not have ventured out there had I seen them. I put myself and unfortunately two other women in danger to discover this. Once I realized the situation and that James and Abbey would not accept responsibility choosing instead to blame us, I pulled my group out of the searches. This occurred after I called for the meeting with BSAR on day three. Below is the text I sent to James on Wednesday evening notifying him that we would not continue and to take my photos off of his GoFundMe campaign. The picture of me on the search did not bother me so much as the other pictures from years past that had nothing to do with the event.

On day two and throughout our trip, I consulted with reporters who I have known for many years and trust. I knew of past run-ins they had with James but was never asked the details. I texted about the lack of supplies for volunteers and how dangerous their searches were asking if they had any thoughts or advice. They immediately got on the phone or texted with me and warned me to be careful. This is when I found out that James was not only verbally abusive to many reporters, but that he had sent them multiple long emails with abusive and intimidating language trying to frighten them into writing articles about BSAR’s work. I was advised to remain silent until we got out of the area and back to our homes. At the same time, I was communicating with others who are in academia and non-profit organizations. All had the same experiences with James and BSAR often using the term “unhinged.”

I messaged a journalist who I consider to be a mentor about what I was experiencing. While walking through the El Paso Historical Museum, they suddenly sent me a voicemail stating that they were worried about our safety. They pointed out that we were uncovering a possible fraud, possible misuse of donations and the possible use of migrant bodies for profit. This could provoke violence in someone who was afraid of the truth coming out. Again, we were advised to lay low until we got out of the area. James was staying just blocks from our hotel. I remembered just then that on the night I arrived, he had insisted on seeing my hotel room with Abbey. He knew exactly which room I was in.

Before leaving for the trip, I connected with a group in the El Paso Latino community to hold an event with BSAR. I was asked to include more about my work and my writing in the event, but I declined saying that it would be inappropriate in that moment. I was there to support and educate the community on the important work James and Abbey were doing. It was an attempt to not center my own work as an ex-agent who once enforced the very policies now killing these women. The event was scheduled for that Saturday at 6pm and flyers went out at least a week before. But once James realized we displeased with him, he chose to create a new event at the Catholic Diocese on the same day, at the same time. He did not notify me nor the event organizers. I found out roughly twenty-four hours before the event from his posts on Facebook and had to notify the organizers who had spent their limited funds to provide the space, food and pay employees.

This left me to fill the gap that BSAR created with utter disregard for the community who offered to host them. I gave fifteen minutes to the elephant in the room and explained what had happened. I told them that I had been wrong to support BSAR and that I would write about this experience to hold myself accountable. I said that I had never in my life seen such an unprofessional and dangerous search and rescue group. This is when the community opened up to me about what they had endured because of BSAR’s actions. This was when I discovered they had driven a wedge in between the Latino community desperately trying to work with the Dona Ana County Sheriff and the New Mexico Office of Medical Investigator’s office. This is when I realized the community was afraid to speak out in fear that doing so would leave the human remains unrecovered. I spoke for over two hours and took all questions. When I returned home, I gave $500 of your subscriptions from my Substack back to the group to cover their costs.

If you have been verbally abused, gaslit and intimidated, then you know the fear and anxiety that creates. I spent the week worried if we would make it back to our families, fearful there would be a banging on our hotel doors, on guard for a man who I now understood did this to nearly everyone around him, especially women. I questioned my own actions and doubted my own observations simply because I could not understand BSAR’s behavior. I constantly thought about how none of this had to be, but realized that it simply is because of one man’s egocentrism, anger and abuse.

My thoughts always return back to the people left in the desert. Even in their deaths, as they turn to bones, people are arguing about them. There is little I can do to remedy this except to tell the truth. I am an outsider; a former migra. I am not a part of the communities affected by this violence and in fact, took part in it. So, I obey their wishes to remain anonymous because they are the living who suffer the consequences.

For the reporters who have told me that they knew BSAR was doing this all along, the ones who now admit they have witnessed him verbally abuse other volunteers, we would not not gone out there had it been included in your articles. For the academics, after witnessing James call one bone a “body,” this now potentially calls your data into question if you have relied on his claims and you must conduct audits to rectify this. To the law enforcement and medical examiners, please reconsider and work with the local community groups who just want respectable and culturally sensitive recoveries.

While I cannot force James and Abbey to return your money, I can offer to reimburse you for my part in promoting their work. I give my sincerest apologies. You may contact me at jennbudd.net, provide your receipts and I will reimburse you from my own pocket. It is important to me to maintain my credibility, and I will find some way to make it happen. You may also rate Battalion Search and Rescue and make complaints on their GoFundMe campaign, their Facebook page and anywhere else you find them if you choose. To all my subscribers and for those who donated to my GoFundMe to send me out there to uncover the truth of why human remains are not being recovered, thank you. You made this painful exposure possible.

May the communities heal from this divisiveness. May the victims find their way home.

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Content warning: This is an essay on searching and finding migrant bodies on the southwest border. There are no photos of these remains attached, but readers may find the descriptions traumatizing.

I have known James Holeman, leader of Battalion Search and Rescue (BSAR) for years. I have always found him to be aggressive and dismissive of the communities he works in. I can name many organizations, reporters or government agencies from California to Texas who have been targeted by his verbal abuse; something he readily admits to. He says it comes from his service in the Marine Corps, from his PTSD and recently he claims to be suffering from mental health issues related to his work which I do not doubt. I have not been able to confirm any of these claims independently.

In the last few years, James added Abbey Carpentar who is his life partner to BSAR. Abbey brought organization and structure to the group and a kinder, gentler approach. When they told me about combing the Chihuahua Desert in Dona Ana County, New Mexico, I was intrigued by their claims that they were finding an unusually high number of women’s remains. As time went on, forensic anthropologists and other experts evaluated the data on the deaths from the El Paso, Texas/Dona Ana County corridor. They also expressed concerns about the high percentages of remains being women and girls. All along the southern border, that percentage is normally between 12-18% according to Humane Borders and No More Deaths analysis. The El Paso/Dona Ana County area that BSAR was now working was seeing 55%.

The more that BSAR searched this area, the more they found and the more resistance they received from El Paso Border Patrol management who was happy to leave the bones lying in the desert. This meant the responsibility for recovery was passed onto the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office led by Sheriff Kim Stewart and the New Mexico Office of Medical Investigator (NM-OMI). Both agencies have stated for years that they are overwhelmed with work and do not have the funds for these recoveries. Both correctly believe the deaths are the responsibility of the U.S. Border Patrol and the federal government. Over the last five years, local Latino and Indigenous rights groups worked with the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office to have the remains collected and the NM-OMI hired five more investigators.

Community groups stated to me that this progress ended when James took to social media (predominately Facebook) to accuse the agencies and their employees of not caring and covering up the deaths. Sheriff Kim Stewart responded with accusing BSAR of planting bones in the desert and digging up ancient Indigenous burial sites. I have seen this standoff often on the southern border before: groups understandably accuse agents of not caring or even covering up the human rights atrocities and the law enforcement agencies and investigative units respond by refusing to collect and analyze the migrant deaths. In the last two years, BSAR’s work has filled the border news grabbing headlines left and right. Rolling Stone did a piece specifically putting a face and a story to the skeletonized remains of Ada Guadelupe Lopez Montoya. I encourage you to read it.

So, when James and Abbey asked me to help draw attention to this area by attending a weeklong search with other volunteers, I did not hesitate to try an uncover more of this atrocity. I recruited a fellow writer and her aunt, Lisa and Kim Gonzalez from Ohio to join me. Neither had ever experienced the border, and I wanted to see how they processed and interpreted thirty years of death by policy. Our goal was to document and create content for BSAR that would call more attention to this area where women and girls were dying at never-before-seen rates. BSAR likes to brag that their volunteer groups are predominately women searching for women. They have endless stories like the one about a minivan full of nuns from El Paso. Our first day was no different. I felt honored to be a part of this search as I know both Lisa and Kim did.

Knowing my limits, I promised only two miles on day one in the nearly one-hundred-degree temperature. I completed my goal, and then promptly got heat sick as the others went back out for another two miles. James kept reminding them all to drink water, but dehydration is not the only danger. If the human body gets to one hundred and five degrees for more than thirty minutes, heat stroke and permanent damage to the brain and death can occur. As an agent, I have witnessed this. The pain suffered is the stuff that still fills my dreams.

I recalled the picture in BSAR’s GoFundMe campaign of red coolers and other supplies. They said donations were needed to support the volunteer searchers, and we helped them raise thousands. Back at the truck, I found only the water I brought and an old milk crate with a dozen or so small bottles of water and Gatorade baking in the sun. I could find no ice packs, no coolers with ice, no basic medical kit to help lower my core temperature. As an agent, I hiked every single day with ice packs that saved many a migrant and agent. As an immigrant rights worker for the last eleven years, I never venture into the deserts without a cooler of ice and water. I have watched reporters go down from the heat in the middle of interviewing me, and I returned their body temperature to normal by placing a cold-water bottle on their necks. This is basic first aid training.

When other migrant search and rescue groups enter the deserts, they maintain protocols for the safety of the searchers. Volunteers who provide support often outnumber the searchers. They maintain an area near the searchers with shade, water, ice packs, food, medical kits and care. Many groups today use satellite phones and Starlink because there is such poor cell service. If someone needs to be life flighted, this is often the only means of outside communication. There was none of this for the volunteers of BSAR save for the ice pack Abbey used to make sure her phone did not overheat.

Lisa and Kim insisted on finishing what we started and went back out on day two while I nursed my heat sickness at the hotel. They said James seemed angry from the moment they got into the truck. Upon getting to the desolate area, he informed the group they were in an area with lots of Border Patrol action. This sent a panic into Lisa who is Latina and had requested multiple times to be warned if they were going to be in a heavily agent saturated area. She was stuck. They had expected four miles but were taken for over six. James barked at her for taking a picture before they headed out claiming there was no time for social media even though creating content was what they asked us to do. At one point, James became enraged with the women who were struggling in the excessive heat to keep each other in line and in site. Abbey stated to volunteers that she had to get away from him when he gets this angry, and she helped another female volunteer who was becoming heat sick get back to the road. James did not ask if she was okay but commented on how losing two searchers would prevent them from finding more bodies. It was Kim and Lisa who gave her their salt tablets and provided her with aid, not BSAR. James continued yelling at Kim and Lisa to get back into line and then suddenly took off so fast that none of the searchers could keep up. They called him on the radio asking him to slow down. Later, he claimed his radio was not working. His rage apparently prevented him from following his own protocols of keeping everyone in his site. Once back at the truck, as Kim and Lisa reached up to two volunteers standing in the bed of the truck to climb aboard, James hit the gas leaving the women standing on the road and nearly caused the two in the bed to fall as he drove away to pick up Abbey and the volunteer who had reported feeling ill. Lisa and Kim were eventually dumped back at the hotel without any food, dehydrated and feeling abused by James. All these statements were backed up in texts between the other volunteers present on that day.

It was not lost on me that in his anger, it was James who left the all-female volunteers in the desert just like a “coyote” or smuggler had left the migrants he was so desperately seeking.

I brought Lisa and Kim out to the desert and was not going to let this behavior slide. On day three, I called for a meeting with BSAR in our hotel lobby. I recorded the conversation because I no longer trusted James. Kim and Lisa opened with how passionate and dedicated they were to this work and how appreciative they were for BSAR’s efforts before stating that the yelling and verbal abuse was not acceptable. James smirked and laughed at them claiming they were not telling the truth. When I asked him if he was saying they were lying, he told me that I knew how being in the field was. I reminded him he was never a Border Patrol agent and these volunteers are not agents. He continued excusing his abusive behavior, blaming his military service, his PTSD and trauma from finding bodies. I admittedly lit into him saying they volunteered to spend a week searching, left their families, spent their own money and that this is not how volunteers or anyone should be treated.

Every critique was met with excuses or statements that they had found over ninety bodies and that they knew what they were doing. It was clear to me that this meant they were not to be questioned. In reading the history of BSAR through the media, this number of bodies or remains found is in constant flux. Sometimes they say they have found over two hundred bodies, sometimes they say they have found over a hundred “sites.” Officially, in the area we were working, the statistics say BSAR has located twenty-seven full human remains in three years. I pointed out to him that he had found zero remains in the sixteen miles they had covered in three days. I asked if he was concerned knowing that the sheriff and others were likely watching this event because he had been claiming the desert was littered with women’s bodies and he had so far found nothing. He stated, “I would be lying if I said I was not concerned.”

The following day when Lisa, Kim and I took the day off, James stated on Facebook that they had found a body. Kim connected with the other volunteers who stated they found one arm bone, not a body or set of remains. One of the reasons I wanted to come to this area was that the numbers thrown out by BSAR did not make sense to me. Abbey stated multiple times they go out once a month. For the two to three years that they claim to have been working this corridor, they could not have found the ninety to over one hundred bodies and or “sites.” It simply is not possible. They get to these numbers by adding in searches from Arizona and California that James has done since 2018. It would also seem that they consider one bone perhaps left behind from a recovery effort to be another body or site with remains. This is likely to lead to double counting. James has since changed the post to say he found a “site with remains.” Reports from independent media put their finds in this corridor at twenty-seven; not seventy-five, not ninety, not one hundred and seventeen. This is misleading to families desperate to find loved ones and those donating to their work.

There is a difference between “search and rescue” and “search and recovery.” Although Abbey is fond of saying she believes her work here is a rescue, it is not. She stated to me they have never found a body with flesh, only bones in this area. It takes roughly nine months to a year for a body to become fully skeletonized in that environment. That distinction between a “rescue” and a “recovery” is important. In a rescue, agents and volunteers often take risks to save a life. In a recovery, the life of the searchers is the top priority. The remains will still be out there, and the goal must be to not add another body to the count. There is no need to search for remains in such temperatures that have already taken thousands of lives. More so, to claim you are rescuing women by taking women out in the same conditions without support and without basic medical needs and then to abuse them verbally makes me question why BSAR does these hikes at all.

I spent the rest of the week listening to local scholars, law enforcement and meeting with leaders of Latino and Indigenous rights groups. Every single one told me how James’ aggression and verbal abuse, his targeted attacks against the sheriff, the deputies and the OMI on social media that are riddled with misogyny have now caused the agencies to stop working towards a solution with the community. Every single person, agency, non-profit group, academic and reporter I spoke to about BSAR demanded I not use their names for fear of retaliation. Specifically, the women who have been targeted by his abuse describe long emails and texts from James filled with threats and accusations. I was warned that should I write this, he would come after me.

James has since created a video claiming without naming Lisa and Kim that they were just interested in a “nature hike.” These two women are in great shape. Neither one gave in. They completed each hike without complaint and were the ones providing medical assistance to one of BSAR’s regular volunteers. This video is simply more abuse by James.

To be clear, the work BSAR does is extremely important. Every single body or remain deserves to be returned to their families. At the same time, James and Abbey are not Latino/Indigenous and that requires sensitivity of the community that I did not witness from BSAR. James creates video after video showing the remains and suggesting they are somehow related to Zorro Ranch or a serial killer when there is no evidence. He is using Ai slop to target officials while claiming that a picture of a mandible or hair lying on the desert floor is somehow identifiable. It is not. That is clickbait, pure and simple. There are thousands of families out there watching groups like BSAR on Facebook. When they see hair, an arm bone, a skull, it gives them hope that they have found their beloved. This increases clicks, shares and donations made in desperate hope while the identities of the missing will remain unknown without cooperation with the sheriff and the NM-OMI.

The story I thought I was going write about has drastically changed. This is what happens when groups with good intentions make the work of recovering the deceased about themselves and about donations. The truth is that it does not matter how many remains BSAR finds if they cannot work with the agencies who are the only ones able to collect, identify and return them to their loved ones. Those bodies will stay on the desert floor thanks to the immense damage BSAR has caused within the community. This serves no one except for BSAR.

The showing of migrant bodies is expressly prohibited by the Latino and Indigenous communities along the southern border unless it is done with their consent and guidance. This is because groups like BSAR have used these shocking pictures for fundraising. James is notorious for this blatant abuse and even got me accused of somehow being involved with one of his pictures when I was not. I have personally had to demand he stop sending me pictures because he sent me one of a newly deceased woman who I could tell had been sexually assaulted. He did this knowing full well my history of sexual assault survival. James has been asked by communities all along the southern border to stop showing videos and pictures of dead migrants, and still he refuses.

I do not know what BSAR uses their donations for. James told me he recently bought a $6,000 professional grade drone, but now they need to purchase a custom-built computer just to fly it. For what it’s worth, basic drones costing around $1,500 would do the job just fine. But the funds they claim to be raising to support the volunteers are not being used for the volunteers.

I have never in my years as a Border Patrol agent, as an immigrant rights activist, as a historian of Border Patrol policies, as a border resident for thirty years seen such a dangerous search and rescue/recovery operation. I have never witnessed so much cultural appropriation and disregard for the communities that must live and work with these agencies. I can safely say that it is a matter of time before one of their volunteers becomes so ill that they suffer irreversible harm or death. And when that happens, BSAR will not be able to provide basic medical care. They will be lucky if their cell phones work to call for help. They will be even luckier if the Dona Ana County deputies or even the Border Patrol respond.

BSAR is dangerous to the living. I cannot in good conscience support their work.

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Whether I am being interviewed by a national mainstream media outlet, speaking with political leaders, a fellow substacker or just meeting people in everyday scenarios, the comment most often made to me is: “ICE was honorable before Trump got ahold of them.”

This always gets a smile if not a hearty chuckle from me.

The data and reports have been clear for over a decade - ICE has never been honorable. None of this is new. I have attached just a smidgeon of that proof below. It is not an exhaustive list, and it is important to note that I can see that many older reports I have in my personal database have been removed from the internet. This is not an accident as the administration is currently “whitewashing” the web.

Today, ICE is prepping to unleash extreme violence and human rights violations under new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. United States citizens and documented immigrants will be victims as well. When this happens, the media and many in Congress will claim this is Trump’s doing. While that is true, it is also true that these same entities have been ignoring the blatant abuse and violence that has long existed within this agency. Don’t buy their excuses. They knew the truth and still voted for more money, more power and less oversight for this agency.

ICE must be abolished for intentionally violating the U.S. Constitution and human rights. There must be accountability.

As you can see, ICE abuses are well documented.

Government Reports

• 2026 - “OVER 1,000 CREDIBLE REPORTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN U.S. IMMIGRATION DETENTION.” Senator Jon Ossoff.

• 2023 - “The Trump Administration's Mistreatment of Detained Immigrants: Deaths and Deficient Medical Care by For-Profit Detention Contractors.” Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Reform.

• 2020 - “Immigration Detention: Care of Pregnant Women in DHS.” Government Accountability Office.

• 2013 - “Immigration detention.” Government Accountability Office.

• 2017 - “Concerns about ICE Detainee Treatment and Care at Detention Facilities.” Department of Homeland Security-Office of Inspector General.

Nongovernmental Organization Reports

• 2025 - “ICE Contractual Capacity and Number Detained: Overcapacity vs. Overcrowding.” TRAC Immigration.

• 2025 - “Too Swift for Human Rights: The Catastrophic Cost of Eliminating Government Oversight over Immigration Enforcement.” Women’s Refugee Commission.

• 2025 - “Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions at Largest Immigration Detention Center in the U.S.” ACLU.

• 2025 - “Inside an ICE Detention Center: Detained People Describe Severe Medical Neglect, Harrowing Conditions.” ACLU.

• 2024 - “Deadly Failures: Preventable Deaths in U.S. Immigrant Detention.” ACLU.

• 2024 - “Sexual Abuse in Immigration Detention.” ACLU.

• 2024 - “Cold Reality: Uncovering the Cruelty and Chaos of ICE Operations in Pennsylvania.” ACLU.

• 2024 - “Policy Brief | Snapshot of ICE Detention: Inhumane Conditions and Alarming Expansion.” National Immigrant Justice Center.

• 2024 - “‘Endless Nightmare’: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention.” Physicians for Human Rights.

• 2024 -“No Human Being Should Be Held There: The Mistreatment of LGBTQ and HIV-Positive People in U.S. Federal Immigration Jails.” Immigration Equality.

• 2023 - “DHS’s Secret Reports on ICE Detention.” Project on Government Oversight.

• 2021 - “COMPLAINTS IGNORED, ABUSES EXCUSED: Why the Department of Homeland Security’s Internal Accountability Mechanisms Must Be Reformed.” National Immigration Project.

• 2020 - “ICE: Federally Funded Abuse and Neglect.” Children’s Defense Fund.

• 2018 - “ACLU Obtains Documents Showing Widespread Abuse of Child Immigrants in U.S. Custody.” ACLU.

• 2017 - “The Detention of Women Seeking Asylum in the United States.” Women’s Refugee Commission.

Academic Reports

• 2024 - “ICE used solitary confinement more than 14,000 times in the past five years, report reveals.” Harvard Law Today.

• 2023 - “Trends in Sexual Assault Against Detainees in US Immigration Detention Centers, 2018-2022.” JAMA.

Reports by Media Outlets

• 2026 - “Why a private company is investigating rapes at an ICE detention center instead of the sheriff. Cal Matters.

• 2025 - “The Human Cost Of ICE: Stories Of Abuse And Neglect.” Journalists for Human Rights.

• 2025 - “US Said to Drop Sex Abuse Lawsuit Against Migrant Child Shelter.” Bloomberg Law.

• 2023 - “‘Immensely Invisible:’ Women Fighting ICE’s Inaction on Sexual Abuses.” Futuro.

• 2023 - “Government’s own experts found ‘barbaric’ and ‘negligent’ conditions in ICE detention.” NPR.

• 2020 - “Whistleblower Nurse in ICE Jail Alleges Forced Sterilization & Neglect Amid 8th COVID Death.” Democracy Now.

• 2019 - “Thousands of immigrant children said they were sexually abused in U.S. detention centers, report says.” The New York Times.

• 2018 - “DETAINED, THEN VIOLATED.” The Intercept.

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For those following the case of Yuma, Arizona Border Patrol agent Nereo Mejia Gomez, Jr., he has finally agreed to a plea deal with U.S. prosectors. This sweetheart of a deal was accepted and approved by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gayle Helart and U.S. District Court Judge Krissa M. Lanham on May 22, 2026. Missing from the plea agreement are charges related to the picture above where Mejia Gomez, Jr. recorded child pornography of a girl living in his house. Other charges dropped included child pornography using toddlers ages 2-5 years. In these videos, men are seen grooming babies and toddlers to accept sex abuse and to gratify their abusers.

AUSA Helart and Judge Lanham apparently do not care about the toddler child pornography, the victims or the defendant’s engagement of producing some of the videos. Judge Lanham has yet to sentence Mejia Gomez, Jr. Sentencing is expected to be between 10-40 years, but there are multiple avenues that can reduce this pedo’s sentencing.

The rape culture of the U.S. Border Patrol is rarely ever adjudicated. When it is, this is the standard: prosecutors and judges dropping the most serious charges and giving lighter sentences. This agent’s crimes are so disgusting and violent that he should be put away for life. Fortunately for Mejia Gomez, Jr., Judge Lanham is willing to uphold that rape culture and ignore most of his crimes.

Send your complaints to:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gayle Helart : Ofc US Attorney, 40 N Central Ave, Ste 1800 2 Renaissance Square, Phoenix, AZ 85004-4449. Phone: 602-514-7517.

U.S. District Judje Krissa M. Lanham: Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse
401 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85003. Phone: (602) 322-7590.

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This video is a 20 minute cut from our Sunday discussion on .

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I first heard of the cruise ship child pornography bust CBP executed this past week from our local San Diego news channels. They stated that CBP conducted inspections of cruise ship employees from April 23-27th and arrested 28 documented persons working on those ships. CBP claimed 27 of the 28 were found to be associated with child pornography.

This immediately got my attention because it did not make any sense. Here are the tells that make me suspicious of CBP’s claims.

First, when ICE, CBP or Border Patrol arrest child predators, they brag about it with mug shots. No mug shots have been released which means they are concerned about defamation. Second, CBP gave zero information as to who these child predators are. The press has been given, no names, no alien identification numbers, no court case numbers to follow. Three, the story spread after the initial reports in right-wing blog posts before ending up in the New York Post, a known Donald Trump and right-wing anti-immigrant propaganda rag. This is the normal chain of spread for right-wing press. Then national Fox News picked it up and USA Today.

“CBP reports 27 of the 28 people detained by federal officials were involved in either the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing of Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) or child pornography,” said one report. CBP, Border Patrol and ICE all pride themselves on preventing child predators from remaining in the country. And yet, the same report also stated, “CBP reports all 27 suspected crew members’ visas were cancelled and they were returned to their country of citizenship.”

Wait, visas cancelled and all were “returned?” No charges? For the most heinous crime of child pornography?

CBP arrested 27 people, accused them publicly of being involved with the production and distribution of child pornography but did not press any charges? What? That is the biggest tell that CBP might not be telling the truth. If this operation was targeted as they claim, where was ICE HSI? To be clear, CBP has the authority to check cruise ships. This is not new. But usually, child pornography is the purview of ICE HSI.

If this was a child pornography operation, why not charge them? Is it not the goal of federal law enforcement to find criminals, charge them and hold them accountable? Where is the Department of Justice in all of this? Is it acceptable to just accuse people of child pornography with no proof, refuse to file charges, strip them of their visas, deny them of due process for criminal allegations and then “remove” them with no formal deportations hearings?

Well, that is what they want you to think. They want you to think it is legal and constitutional to grab Black and Brown people, vaguely accuse them of child sex crimes and simply “remove” them with no due process. And as you see, the media is only willing to help them do it. As of this writing, not a single outlet has even questioned their actions.

Think back to the first deportations raids. No, not the ones in Los Angeles. I’m talking about the ones in Kern County, California. The ones that happened before Trump was sworn in a second time in January 2025. The ones that were the audition for the flamboyant Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino. In those raids, he claimed the arrests were “targeted” against criminals even though anyone could see agents just stood outside a convenience store waiting for Brown people to exit with their morning coffee before tackling them. Bovino stated to the media at the time that all 78 arrests were criminals.

But then we found out Bovino lied. His words above were NOT TRUE! Cal Matters called it “misleading,” but I prefer the term lying. Bovino lied so much, judges have ruled that he perjured himself about use of force and attacking protestors, with Judge Ellis stating she found him to not be credible.

ICE, CBP and Border Patrol rely on the fact that most press will not call them out for this. Most will simply regurgitate what they are told: “CBP claims all were involved in child pornography.” Readers’ minds swirl with disgust. They are happy CBP is boldly targeting child predators. CBP will now add these arrests of “child predators” to their stats.

But can we see their mug shots? No. Can we see the charges? There are none. Can we bring some justice to these child predators? No, we “removed” them without a judicial order.

ICE, CBP and Border Patrol love to harp on deterrence to prevent criminal activity. Border Patrol’s entire failed border policy revolves around making crossing the border so physically painful, it deters others from crossing. Thirty years later, they still falsely claim it works. CBP deters people from even requesting asylum by arresting them for simply walking up and asking for it. ICE is starting to deter legal asylum claims by holding entire families in detention for years just to have their claims heard before a judge. “There must be consequences for their immigration violations,” is heard all throughout immigration enforcement rhetoric and politicking.

Yet, when it comes to child pornography and sex crimes, they let people they claim are predators go. There is no deterrence. I’m not surprised by this hypocrisy. When Attorney General Pam Bondi first took office, she dropped all the charges against unaccompanied child detention center Southwest Key employees who were accused of sexually assaulting children in custody. We also know that several high-ranking CBP officers enabled and did not prevent the Epstein trafficking. We also know the head of CBP’s Border Patrol, Chief Michael Banks is a known sex tourism fan and the government couldn't care less even though that is also illegal.

So, while ICE, CBP and Border Patrol claim to be protecting us all from violent criminals committing everything from child pornography to sex trafficking, they simply are not charging or even investigating many of these cases. At most, they just strip people of their documents and “remove” them based on hunches.

To be fair, ICE recently charged and convicted a woman for organizing and filming animal torture films and posting them on the internet. ICE Director Todd Lyons was so disturbed by videos of monkeys beings sexually assaulted he made a public statement about it. I agree, and believe those involved should spend the rest of their lives in jail. At the same time, I see no comments or even threat of investigations for the men who drugged and raped their wives and then sold the videos on the internet. Those videos are still up.

Because abuse and rape of animals is far worse than when you do it to women and children?

ICE, CBP and Border Patrol engage in media baiting to push propaganda. They are presenting documented immigrants as criminals without any evidence and “removing” them without any due process, and the press takes the bait every time. This is a literal plan within the agencies to portray legal immigrants as criminals in order to justify deporting more of them. I am serious; this is a literal plan being carried out.

Why must the immigration agencies target legal immigrants for removals? Two reasons: they have lied to the public about how many immigrants are criminals to justify their mass deportations and ballooned budgets, and because the actual goal is to reduce the Black and Brown populations of this country. When it comes to child pornography, they offer little deterrence.

Are they too lazy to do the work? Perhaps, but my bet is that most of these people did not have child pornography ties. My bet is that CBP is again lying. It’s either that or CBP does not care to hold child pornographers accountable.

Whichever is the case, the press is inclined to keep repeating their claims without any investigation. Children are still being preyed upon. These cruise ships who cater to families could possibly have a defamation suit on their hands if CBP is lying. The title to the press’ articles should not be “CBP says they arrested 27 child pornographers on cruise ships.” It should be “CBP refuses to charge people for alleged child pornography, strips them of their rights and disappears them.”

This is extremely dangerous, because if they can do this to immigrants, to legal immigrants, then they can do this to everyone.

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On Monday, I had the pleasure of joining Antonia Hylton of MSNOW for an interview. Antonia wanted to discuss the morning’s Washington Post article, “Internal ICE records reveal widespread use of force in detention centers.” She opened with the article and an investigative piece that she did on ICE and immigration. I then answered about three questions. That is fairly standard in mainstream media. I do not enjoy doing these types of interviews because it is not possible to explain something so complicated in a minute or less, but that is the format and what it requires.

MSNOW published the lede but cut my statements in the clips posted to YouTube and their app. This is their prerogative. I was not told why, and frankly, I am not offended. I was happy to have been given the opportunity to speak live. MSNOW has tons of clips to choose from and cannot possibly publish everything they do on their sites. They may have been disappointed in my statements commenting on the media and press, but then again, they may not have been. I simply do not know, nor do I care to spend time wondering about it now.

Because I do not have the video, I cannot say verbatim what the questions and responses were. My neighbor happened to take a quick video when she saw I was on TV. It is only a partial, but gives you an idea of the conversation on why there is little accountability.

Antonia wanted to know what my thoughts were on the WAPO piece that described hundreds of use of force incidents inside ICE facilities. I stated that the report showed the pattern and practice of the agency that has gone on since its inception. It is well documented that people held in ICE and CBP/Border Patrol custody are often beaten, tased, pepper sprayed and so on. The ACLU has documented ICE abuses over and over again for years.

None of this is new.

She asked why we are just hearing about this, and while I explained that there were a few reasons, the most important reason is because more can see ICE violence happening on national news. While many Americans do not care about how immigrants are treated, I have found that most do not know that these agencies have always behaved this way. Perhaps that is intentional ignorance, perhaps it is not. Either way, most have little comprehension of how these agencies have run amok on the southern border with little accountability and have designed complicated coverup systems to hide their use of force crimes. Most believe the agencies and their agents are only behaving this way because Trump is ordering them to do so.

The truth, which is what I told Antonia, is that these agencies have used the southern border these last two decades to hone their violence skills and to design and perfect the coverup systems used to protect their agents and the agencies. I said that Americans either did not care because it was aimed at Black and Brown undocumented bodies, or they genuinely did not know because the national press had not covered the abuses of these agencies well until now.

Antonia said that DHS replied that ICE officers are highly trained in de-escalation techniques and are trained to use the minimal amount of force necessary to perform their jobs. I replied that the statement is true if you only consider the academy trainings that agents/officers receive in the first few months of official training. Academy training is generally by the book, follows the Constitution, the law and policy. But this fails to recognize that it is the field trainings and the sector level trainings where immigration agents are taught how to get away with use of force violations. That is where we were and still are taught how to ram cars without just cause, how to give a Mexican heart attack without leaving marks, how to get away with sexual assaults of women and children in custody, beatings, tasings, etc.

When Antonia asked why Americans are so unaware that all this is normal pattern and practice by the agencies, I replied that it is because the national media has not covered the corruption and brutality well. I said that the press needs to stop reporting what “DHS says” and start focusing on what they do. We have plenty of evidence that DOJ, DHS, ICE, CBP and Border Patrol officials constantly and consistently lie and not just under Trump. They have lied to judges and even ignored court orders. Most of all, they lie without hesitation to the press and in turn to the public.

Again, none of this is new. Here’s an essay I wrote on how CBP and Border Patrol literally teach and even defend agents caught lying on court documents, which is a felony. This piece shows how the agencies claimed in U.S. district court in 2008 that they train their agents to lie in official government and court documents regarding narcotics cases. The agencies’ literal testimony to the court was that they train agents to lie. When the court and the U.S. attorneys’ office demanded to see the training documents that teach agents to lie on government and court documents, the agencies refused to turn over the training documents claiming they were “law enforcement sensitive.” Those two agents who lied about a narcotics seizure were let go, the case was dropped and they were allowed to continue serving as federal agent—even though they admitted to lying about a drug seizure.

As Rachel Maddow says, watch what they do and not what they say.

When I watched the coverage of the Marimar Martinez shooting and the Renee Good and Alex Pretti homicides in real time, I was able to state the next steps taken by the agencies as if I were there simply because I had this training in the 1990s and I have read the same pattern and practice responses in nearly every use of force incident I find:

• Escalate the violence by putting yourself in harms way.

• State over and over that you feared for your life.

• Contaminate the evidence so a case cannot be built by walking or driving over the evidence, or dragging the body away from the scene.

• Hide evidence that shows agents acted improperly.

• Only contact the Critical Incident Teams of ICE or CBP-Office of Professional Responsibility who are made up of our ex-agents.

• Disperse witnesses by any means.

• Claim the agent responsible is injured and send them to the hospital whether injured or not because the hospital cannot legally comment.

• Disparage the victim in the media.

• Agency press officers, high ranking agents and union representatives receive official version of events and are to paint the victims as violent and the aggressors.

• Refuse to cooperate with local and state police unless we control them through our funding and have an established relationship with their investigators.

• Move the offending agent to another sector.

• Ignore the media. Refuse to testify before Congress. Close the case.

• Rinse and repeat with next case.

Pattern and practice since the 1990s, and now it has spread to the interior. I say the media played a large part in this because they have kept many Americans in the dark about what these agencies have been doing. Decades of documented systemic violence, corruption, use of force violations, sexual assaults, lying in court — it all exists. You just haven’t heard the stories from the national media.

For what it’s worth, I believe the journalists from MSNOW have done some excellent work. Antonia has been following a family in Houston, Texas to expose the violence of mass deportations. Jacob Soboroff was instrumental in covering child separations under the first Trump administration. It was Rachel Maddow who first alerted many Americans to the horrible separations and spawned protests that ended the official policy. Maddow is now focused on the ICE warehouses and apparent kickback schemes. Julia Ainsley shows us an inside look at DHS during the first year of mass deportations under Trump 2.0 in her new book “Undue Process.”

The larger picture of what these agencies do, their brutality and corruption, their coverups are what scares the mainstream media. It is the same reason why it took me so long as an ex-agent to see and speak the truth; the same cause for why Congress never investigates these agencies thoroughly and independently — American exceptionalism and indoctrination into systems built upon racism. The desire to see these institutions as honorable or trustworthy when they have consistently shown and told us that they are none of these things, that is our responsibility to correct. For far too many of us, it has simply been easier to listen and regurgitate their propaganda or to pretend that the immigration agencies are who they claim to be. That is what these agencies require for their lies to be believed. They cannot exist without our approval, without our support.

I recognize that I say and write things that scare people and make them uncomfortable, but it is this feeling that we must all lean into if we are to escape this rope-a-dope game they are playing. The uncomfortableness comes from the hypocrisy. And there are only two ways to deal with it: ignore it as we have for generations and pretend it is a just, lawful and humane system or admit we have created a brutally inhumane system that employs some of the worst among us and then hold them and ourselves accountable.

The immigration agencies have perfected their violence and coverup systems for generations on the southern border. Everything you are seeing in Chicago, Minneapolis and elsewhere is standard, pattern and practice.

The national media has just not told the story, yet.

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Content warning: sexual violence.

Maybe I’m a bit worn out from all the talk about rape culture and sexual assault. Part of me doesn’t want to hear anymore. The other part is glad that sex abusers are out and proud. The more that abusers express their violence openly, the more doubters will see that the United States and most of the world are hypocrites. Sexual violence is tolerated and ignored everywhere, even in halls of our U.S. Congress.

Eleven years ago, I made the decision to write about my hazing rape into the U.S. Border Patrol. In 2022 when my memoir was published, I naively hoped other victims would come forward about the sexual abuse of female agents. They did, but not publicly. “They will never change,” I was told. “It is just the way it is and will always be.”

But I am an incredibly stubborn woman.

My first venture into law enforcement was filled with excellent examples of good men. I was only 22 years old, a senior at Auburn University. My last quarter was spent as an intern at the Mobile, Alabama District Attorney’s Investigative Unit. My boss was a former FBI agent. He taught me how to conduct professional investigations. His investigators were men and women, Black and white. There was no sexual harassment, no sexual abuse. It was amazing and what I naively assumed most law enforcement to be like.

It took a suicide attempt and many years of therapy just to be able to talk about what my sexual assault in the Border Patrol academy did to me. Especially because my assault came from a fellow agent, someone who I was supposed to be able to trust with my life. During my six years as an agent, I hiked mountains for hours alone in the middle of the night. With just a baton and a revolver, I arrested groups of 20 to 100 men alone. Sometimes, I felt fear like when two migrant men charged at me only to think better of it after seeing me draw my gun. More often, I felt fear whenever I found myself alone with a male agent I did not know well. No, they were not all rapists, but they all knew what had happened to me. They gave me nicknames for it and never once said what was done to me was wrong.

I started down this road of studying rape cultures to save my life. I needed to understand what had happened to me and why an agency who professes every single day to not tolerate sexual violence was, in fact, hiding its incredibly robust rape culture. Every time I see the Border Patrol brag about catching a sexual predator at the border, I think about all the ways these same agents get away with their sex abuse and how they have created a nearly airtight system within the federal service with which to do it.

If you are a federal employee who is sexually harassed or/and assaulted by a fellow employee, you are forced to navigate the gauntlet they call the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While EEOC likes to portray itself as where federal employees go to resolve conflicts, it is literally the black hole where sexual abuse cases go to die. While I am sure many individuals working within this agency are trying to do what is legal and correct, the system is designed to limit the criminal and civil liabilities of the government. It is not designed to provide justice or deter sexual abuse. This is why I am not upset that Trump is destroying it. EEOC covers up sexual abuse in the federal system.

Even when victims are finally given permission from EEOC to sue the government for their abuse, their claims are often denied by the federal courts. Federally, the only avenue for most victims to obtain any kind of justice is through the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). As Gregory Sisk pointed out in the Iowa Law Review of 2019 in “Holding the Federal Government Accountable for Sexual Assault” —

The average American would be shocked to learn that the United States government holds itself absolutely immune from civil liability for most sexual assaults by its employees. Even the average lawyer might be surprised to discover that the federal employee who commits a sexual assault may also be shielded from individual tort liability by a special federal statute.

The Federal Tort Claims Act bars assault and battery claims against the sovereign United States, even if committed by an agent acting within the scope of most types of federal employment—that includes military recruiters, postal workers, and daycare employees. At the same time, the Westfall Act grants federal employees immunity from state tort claims for acts within the scope of employment. The scope of employment for both federal statutes is defined by state respondent superior law, which over the decades has evolved to hold employers legally responsible under more circumstances for the intentional wrongdoing of employees. As a consequence of these statutes and evolving liability doctrines, both the federal government as an entity and the federal employee as an individual may well be immune from tort liability for assault and battery.

The paragraphs above describe the scaffolding that our legislators at the state and federal levels have created to protect federal employees and their agencies from being held to account for sexual violence.

In 2023 and 2024, Border Patrol Chiefs Tony Barker, Jr. and Joel Martinez were accused by multiple female agents of using their positions to demand sex acts. While the system that provides internal affairs in CBP and Border Patrol always professes to be independent, upwards of 80% of CBP Office of Professional Responsibility (CBP-OPR) investigators are former CBP and Border Patrol agents who have kept the rape culture of their agencies secret for years. CBP-OPR investigators warned the two chiefs about the ongoing investigations. Then the boss of CBP-OPR investigations closed the cases, sealed them and resigned. His name is Daniel Altman, and he is also a former Border Patrol agent. You can read more about how this system works here.

The alleged victims of Chiefs Barker, Jr. and Martinez never got to see their cases go before a criminal court because their bros at investigations failed to file any charges. If EEOC eventually gives the alleged victims a right to sue the federal government, they still must obtain their own attorneys and fight the agency by themselves. The agency will not release any prior allegations in these agents’ files because that would be considered “improper” and “prejudicial” against the alleged offender. Should victims ever get to a civil trial, the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Westfall Act pretty much assure federal agents who commit heinous sex crimes will never be held accountable.

Take the case of Esteban Manzanares. As a Border Patrol agent in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas, he arrested an undocumented woman, her teenage daughter and her teenage friend in March of 2014. He sexually assaulted and tried to strangle and break the necks of the mother and one of the teens and then tried to bury them alive. He then drove his Border Patrol back to the station, moved the other teenage victim to his car and took her home. There he tied her to a chair naked, sexually abused her and took pornographic pictures. The two other victims survived, flagged down other law enforcement and reported the incident. When cops got to Manzanares’ residence and banged on his door, he committed suicide.

Years later, all three victims were denied any accountability or restitution by federal courts. Three appellant court judges on the 5th Circuit found that the federal government could not be held liable for Manzanares’ actions even though he was on duty, in uniform, acting as a federal agent in a U.S. Border Patrol service truck when he committed the crimes. Under federal tort law, if the employee’s conduct was not part of their “scope of employment,” then the government is not liable. Rape, sexual assault, strangulation, kidnapping and trying to bury someone alive are not considered to be part of a Border Patrol agent’s job and therefore the agency is not liable according to the court’s reasoning. When some cases do succeed, it is only when a state court more broadly determines that “scope of employment.” Unfortunately, for the Manzanares victims, they were in Texas. They lost, and no one was held accountable.

Federal agents who commit sex crimes know this. They know if they sexually assault anyone while on duty, the chances the victim files a complaint are small. Even when a complaint is filed, they can rely on ex-agents who then become internal affairs investigators to slow-walk and drag out the investigations. If they are not in management, they know they will receive expert legal advice through their union attorneys. If their victim is another employee and union member too, they will receive little help, while their abuser will get complete legal assistance from that same union. They know that if criminal charges are likely, they will be warned to resign or retire and many investigations will be sealed and closed before any charges can be filed. They know that if EEOC does finally allow victims to civilly sue for damages, they will likely not lose their jobs but simply be moved to another sector to continue on with their assaults. In the rare times abusers are disciplined by the agency, they know it will likely just be a verbal or written reprimand. The federal agency itself knows it cannot be held accountable for its agents committing sexual assaults., and thus has no incentive to not hire those under sexual investigations (see Border Patrol Agent Steven Charles Holmes) or those with prior sexual assault arrests (see Border Patrol Chaplain Dana R. Thornhill).

And when all of that is so clearly known, there is zero deterrence for federal employees who commit sexual abuse.

All this is to say, how can we expect justice and reformation in an agency when the U.S. Congress is the one who created this system? An even better question is: how can we expect Congress to address the rape culture and scaffolding that protects it when they cannot even protect themselves?

The truth is that we cannot.

Congress is the creator of our laws. If Congress has a slush money fund to buy the silence of victims abused by its members, if they force victims to sign non-disclosure agreements, if it’s a dirty little secret that everyone knows but nobody reports — then their laws are not worth the paper they are printed on. The system that has been created to protect the lawmakers also protects the enforcers. Their outrage is performative.

Do you see the full picture now?

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The following is an analysis of the illegal and secret actions taken by the illegal San Diego Critical Incident Investigative Team under the direction of former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott who is currently serving as CBP Commissioner. This follows the analysis of Scott’s coverup using the same team of the Anastasio Hernandez Rojas killing and is further documented by the HBO-Max documentary Critical Incident: Death at the Border which was recently nominated for an Emmy and Peabody Award.

This article is part of Borderland Talk’s Border Patrol Critical Incident Teams (CIT) series documenting the acts of the illegal and secret coverup units that still exist under their parent agency, Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). To read other articles and see the history of the coverup teams, see the US Border Patrol Illegal Coverup Teams newsletter in the blog section. This is the only series documenting the teams’ coverups.

While you read this article, think of the recent Renee Good shooting by ICE in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pay attention to the similarities. Remember that the illegal coverup teams were rolled into CBP-OPR which is now led by the same man who covered up Valeria’s killing.

Note that the CIT for San Diego Sector was called the Critical Incident Investigative Team (CIIT). There are a variety of names used by CITs. For consistency and ease of understanding, I refer to the San Diego team as a Critical Incident Team or CIT.

Valeria Munique Tachiquin Alvarado was born in San Diego County in 1980 and was thus a United States citizen by birth. She was killed by Border Patrol Agent Justin Tackett on September 28, 2012 in Chula Vista, California. He shot her “at least nine times.” She was married with five children at the time of her death.

On that day, Agent Tackett along with other Border Patrol agents reportedly went to serve an arrest warrant on Ricardo Ibarra Hernandez in a Chula Vista apartment. Ibarra Hernandez was an undocumented man with a criminal record for possession with intent to sell illegal narcotics and a prior formal deportation. None of the agents were in uniform, and specifically Agent Tackett testified that he did not have his badge showing. Although Valeria was present at the apartment with other individuals, she was not the subject who agents claimed to have a warrant for, nor did she commit any crimes in front of agents.

It is clear from her actions that Valeria wanted no part of whatever was about to go down in that apartment and decided to leave. As she walked to her car, Agent Tackett and his partner, Border Patrol Agent Alexander Roozen, followed her demanding she stop. Both agents testified under oath that neither ever identified themselves as Border Patrol agents.

When Valeria got into her car, Agent Tackett placed himself in front of her parallel parked sedan, while Agent Roozen stood to the side and rear of her vehicle. As one does when exiting a parallel parking spot, she reversed a bit to create room in front so she could pull out. Upon pulling forward, Agent Tackett claimed she nudged his leg with her front, driver’s side fender. He then accused her of assaulting a federal officer and ordered Agent Roozen to shatter her driver’s side window. This exchange was captured on the San Diego Border Patrol Dispatch’s phone line.

After Roozen shattered Valeria’s driver’s side window covering her in shards of glass, she again reversed and then tried to pull forward and exit the spot when Agent Tackett again placed himself in front of her car. Agent Tackett then claimed Valeria accelerated towards him forcing him onto the hood of her car and that she drove erratically and fast trying to get him off the car. He stated this forced him to draw his weapon while lying on the hood. He said he let go of the car and held the weapon with both hands as he emptied his gun into Valeria, killing her.

It is important to note that I have written extensively about how Border Patrol agents are trained to bust out car windows. This training is not official: it does not occur at the academy nor in classrooms. It occurs in the field and passed down from agent to agent. It was my training as an agent in 1995. It is still the training today. It is done for the sole purpose of frightening the victim. It is an intentional escalation of violence that often causes victims to panic and hit the gas. This is used to justify the shootings. Every time this happens, Border Patrol teaches agents to say the car was used “as a weapon” against the agent. This pattern and practice is also documented in the killing of Noe Mejia in March 2023.

Today, we see it in the ICE raids in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and elsewhere. Pattern and practice: bust the window, victim panics and hits gas, justifies agents shooting, CBP hits the press hard with the vehicle “was used as a weapon and tried to run over our agent.” Rinse, repeat.

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Step one of Border Patrol CIT protocol is to control the narrative. In Valeria’s killing, step one had to be performed by San Diego Sector Chief Rodney Scott as his illegal (CIT) Critical Incident Team was unavailable. Instead, he rushed from San Diego Sector Headquarters with the San Diego Sector Intelligence Unit agents in tow. According to multiple witnesses, the Sector Intelligence Unit agents grabbed witnesses and forced them into the back of their vehicles while Chief Scott got in front of the local media cameras. Valeria’s warm, lifeless body was lying in the background as Chief Scott told cameras she tried to kill Agent Tackett with her car.

Chief Scott seemed to know all the facts about the investigation just hours after the killing, proclaiming that it was the agent who was the victim and not the dead mother with nine bullets in her body. The reality was that it was far too early for Chief Scott to have known the facts of the case, and he was repeating what the shooter was claiming. Border Patrol protocol and internal CIT policy required him to set the narrative which is almost always that the agent is the victim.

Scott ordered his Sector Intelligence Unit to act as the CIT unit that day. According to the testimony of former U.S. Marine and witness Prince Watson, the agents handcuffed him and placed him in the back of their car insisting over and over that Watson’s eyes had lied to him. They told him was mistaken. They said he did not see Agent Tackett standing when he shot, insisting he was on the hood of the car fearing for his life. This was an important point as the agency was claiming that Valeria forced Agent Tackett onto the hood by hitting him and that caused him to fear for his life. This “fear for life” is critical in justifying use of force and is stressed constantly in Border Patrol training both in official settings and in the field. But Watson refused to change his statement and was adamant that he saw the agent shoot from a standing position in front of the car.

These statements were made to the Chula Vista Police and to ABC News 10 on the day of the killing. I can find no testimony taken from Watson after this point. He simply disappeared from the case. But, he wasn’t the only witness to say Agent Tackett fired while standing. Witness Patti Ashley testified in the civil trial that Tackett shot while on the hood and after getting back onto his feet. Witness Ashley Guilbeau stated the agent shot while standing. Roberto Flores is another witness who stated he saw Agent Tackett fire while on the hood and while off. But, there were other witnesses who stated he fired from the hood the entire time.

This confusion in testimonies is not unusual in shootings. It is a well documented phenomena and why every witness, every bit of evidence must be evaluated before addressing the public. As is seen in this case and every shooting by Border Patrol agents, the policy of the agency is to ignore the best practices of not discussing on-going cases and simply repeat what they want the evidence to be. This influences potential future jurors and public opinion. It also pressures local police and prosecutors to not file charges, which is the goal of setting the narrative.

The day that ended Valeria’s life saw multiple local reports repeating the agency’s narrative. “The suspect was armed with a vehicle, and literally ran our agent down,” Chief Scott continued commenting on the investigation. Chula Vista Police told the press that Valeria had “assaulted” the agent with her car, and that agents were in the process of “serving a felony warrant.” It was reported that the agent who killed Valeria was hospitalized for his injuries even though they later admitted he had none. Before night fell, they began reporting the victim had a prior drug conviction, though no drug or alcohol tests were performed on the man who killed her.1

Five days later, every article reported that Valeria had been on probation for methamphetamine at the time of her killing. A Chula Vista Police spokesperson told the press the victim had three prior arrests for drugs, that she was present at a known “drug apartment.” And while they were killing the victim a second time by trashing her character in the media, they continued to lie to the press repeatedly stating that the Border Patrol agents had a “felony arrest warrant” and had identified themselves. The spokesperson added that the agent who killed Valeria had been released from the hospital, making it sound as if he had been hospitalized for five days when he had not been.2

A week after the shooting, people took to the streets to protest Chief Scott and his agents’ brutality. The press continued to repeat Chief Scott’s claims that Valeria had intentionally hit Agent Tackett and that she was a drug user. This was when questions began to emerge about the Border Patrol’s version of events. While there were witnesses who agreed with the cops that the agent was on the hood while shooting, others agreed with witness Prince Watson that he was standing while shooting, more witnesses were coming forward and publicly stated that was not true. Ayanna Evans stated said Agent stood in the street and fired as Valeria slowly backed up. “She looked confused,” Evans said. “She was backing up and he was going toward her, then he pulled out his gun and shot five times.”3

Then, news about misconduct began to emerge. While still refusing to report his name, local media stated Agent Tackett had previously been a deputy with the Imperial County, CA Sheriff’s Office before being hired by the Border Patrol. While a deputy for a only short time, Tackett had a robust history of suspensions for “incompetence, violating rules of conduct” and conduct unbecoming of an officer.4

On October 14, 2012, a full two weeks and three days after Valeria was killed, the media finally named Agent Tackett as the killer and began to dissect his past. He had been suspended four times in his four years as a deputy in Imperial County. In one case he crashed a patrol car. In another, he was accused of disobeying a direct order and “providing false and misleading information” during an investigation. In yet another case, he reportedly locked a man in the back of his patrol car and turned the heater on full blast.5 It is important to know that the Imperial Valley is a literal desert.

Then, the U.S. Border Patrol and chatty Chief Scott became quiet. When asked about Agent Tackett’s past misconduct, both the Border Patrol and Chula Vista PD suddenly found their ethics and stated they could not talk about on going investigations for fear of influencing the case. But this did not stop the Border Patrol Union from joining in and claiming through then union vice-president Shawn Moran, “If the agent says his life was threatened and he needed to use deadly force, we’re going to back him and accept his statement at face value.”6

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Returning our attention back to the CITs - Chief Scott was able to use another unit (Sector Intelligence Unit) to act as the CIT that day when they were unavailable. This suggests to me as a former senior sector intelligence agent that it was likely Chief Scott who acted as the CIT lead that day ordering them to grab witnesses and lock them in their cars. We only see the CIT agents once the investigation moved from the scene in Chula Vista to the interview rooms.

The following was gleaned from PACER court records. Neither the Chula Vista Police Department nor the Tachiquin Alvarado family attorney, Eugene Iredale would cooperate for this analysis. CIT report - #12098F1.SDC. Chula Vista PD report - #1212738. U.S. District Court, Southern Californa (San Diego) #13-cv-1202-LL.

Agents assigned to the illegal San Diego Sector CIT at the time and involved in the investigation were Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Brian Smith, Senior Patrol Agent Joe Vaiasuso (also seen in the Anastasio Hernandez Rojas coverup) and agents Amy Mattraw, Tracey Wong, Elisabeth Berry and Robert Butler. Demonstrating how many killings these agents covered up, just a year after working on Valeria’s killing, Border Patrol Agent Tracey Wong was allowed to conduct an entire homicide investigation into a U.S. citizen who died in custody without any authority whatsoever. Steven Keith’s family has never received a legal investigation into his death at the Campo, CA Border Patrol station in 2013 thanks to CIT Agent Wong.

CIT Border Patrol Agent Tracey Wong attended the Chula Vista PD interviews of Border Patrol agents involved in the killing of Valeria. Wong even questioned her fellow agents directly during the supposed “independent investigation” as if she were an accredited homicide investigator. She was also present at the interview of Agent Roozen on the day of the killing and at the autopsy.

A full five days after killing Valeria, Agent Tackett finally sat down to be interviewed by Chula Vista investigators. Again, Border Patrol CIT Agent Wong was present. With Agent Tackett was his union attorney who he had been consulting with since the shooting had occurred. As was demonstrated in the Anastasio case, union attorneys have access to CIT reports. Agent Wong then returned to the CIT office to write reports on what the Chula Vista PD investigators were finding in the interviews. This is done to assist the chief and the press information office with continued narrative framing. It is something not afforded to other people accused of homicide.

Below is an example of the illegal CIT work. Note that Agent Tackett’s badge is visible in the CIT official report even though he testified that it was not. In an investigatory report, this is considered to be tampering with evidence because it was not true. This demonstrates that CIT reports contain information that helps establish the narratives set by the agency. It did not matter that Agent Tackett testified that his badge was not visible and that he did not identify himself. This picture is evidence taken by the illegal CIT and a statement that his badge was visible, without having to make a false statement on a government document, which is a crime.

Only after the criminal prosecution was denied was it finally revealed through discovery in the civil suit years later that none of the agents had obtained a search or arrest warrant, making the entire attempted stop of Valeria completely illegal. Border Patrol agents did not and still do not have knock-and-talk authorities and are required by law to have warrants. But the illegality of the stop was no longer in question because local, state and federal authorities had already declined to file charges against Agent Tackett.

The entire purpose of Chief Scott running down to the scene and standing with Valeria’s bloodied body riddled with Border Patrol hollow points in the background, the whole point of leaking out to the media that she had prior drug arrests and leaking out the autopsy findings, the reason the Border Patrol kept repeating to the press that they had a “felony warrant” was so that local, state and federal officials would decline to prosecute the case. If they had a warrant, then the stop was legal.

But they lied. They never had a warrant. The stop was completely illegal, which means her killing was not justified and was therefore a crime of murder.

In the end, five children were left without their mother. The family got a settlement; a large chunk went to his attorney. Agent Tackett was moved to another sector. In the U.S. Border Patrol, he is heralded as a hero for pulling the trigger. None of the CIT nor the intelligence agents were held accountable. The illegal CITs were moved under CBP after their illegality was exposed. Chief Rodney Scott went on to become the Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, and currently serves at the Commissioner of CBP. He testified recently before Congress that he is using his old CIT agents who were moved to CBP to evaluate the evidence in the Alex Pretti killing.

Valeria’s murder was part of why the Police Executive Research Forum released a report in 2013 evaluating Border Patrol shootings. PERF found that agents routinely placed themselves in front of cars causing the shootings.

This, of course, has not stopped agents from placing themselves in the path of cars and shooting at people in cars. That is because no agent has ever been held accountable. And if they are never held accountable, then why stop doing it?