None of the 42 people who were arrested during a Sunday incident at the border between San Diego, Calif., and Tijuana will face criminal charges, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Homeland Security agency said in a statement Thursday the Trump administration will not end up prosecuting anyone from that group for illegal entry or other crimes after hundreds of Central American migrants attempted to storm the border near the San Ysidro port of entry Sunday.
“We will not be able to provide a disposition for each member of the group arrested. However, since the 42 will not face criminal entry charges, they will face administrative removal. Depending on their country of citizenship and their case’s final disposition, the Border Patrol may turn those people over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the official said.
CBP would not share specifics on individual cases.
Border Patrol agents at the scene had deployed tear gas after people began climbing through gaps in the wall, which exist due to construction along 14 miles of the border where a shorter, dilapidated fence is being replaced with an 18-foot-tall fence.
The first time a person trespasses into the U.S. is a misdemeanor and the second attempt is a felony. CBP will refer to the Justice Department people who are caught illegally entering the country unless they are with children.
In the Sunday incident, CBP said 27 of those 42 people were adult men. The rest were women and children.
Two of the 42 people arrested were referred to DOJ for prosecution. A CBP official told the Associated Press those two people were not charged due to medical issues because federal facilities in the region were not equipped to hold them.
The official also said many of the group were not able to be charged because they were children or part of a family. Earlier this year, the Trump administration had called on illegal entrants to face prosecution, even those arrested with children. The decision was reversed in mid-June, and CBP told the Washington Examiner in June that most families would not be referred for prosecution.
Others in the group will not face charges because CBP lacked details about their arrests, including the names of the agents who arrested them.
On Monday, Border Patrol San Diego Sector Chief Rodney S. Scott said “numerous people” evaded arrest and got past agents at the border.
Scott said his federal agents used tear gas against members of a migrant group because they assaulted law enforcement personnel while trying to break through the barrier.
“What we saw over and over yesterday is that the group, the caravan as we call them, would push women and children to the front and then begin basically rocking our agents,” Scott told CNN.
“The group immediately started throwing rocks and debris at our agents, taunting the agents, and once our agents were assaulted, and the numbers started growing, we had two or three agents at a time initially facing hundreds of people at a time, they deployed tear gas to protect themselves and to protect the border,” Scott said.
Tear gas, technically referred to as 2-chlorobenzylidene malonoitrile, historically has been used by CBP officers and Border Patrol agents in similar incidents where groups have descended on one part of the border.
In 2012, under former President Barack Obama, CBP reported 26 times when tear gas was used by CBP.
That number dropped over the next few years down to three total incidents in fiscal 2016.
The use of tear gas has crept back up to levels seen in 2012 and 2013 during Trump’s first two years in office. In 2017, federal agents documented using the gas 18 times. CBP has used pepper spray 29 times so far in 2018.
Approximately 5,800 active-duty troops deployed to the southern border are assisting in support roles and were not on the frontlines of the border Sunday.
The Mexican government announced this week it will deport 98 people who were involved in Sunday’s attack on federal enforcement officers.
