Thousands of Border Patrol agents who work along the U.S.-Mexico border will soon be outfitted with body cameras to capture their interactions with the public, including migrants who are arrested for illegally entering the country.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced this month a $13 million contract for Arizona-based company Axon to provide clip-on cameras for 3,800 Border Patrol agents primarily on the southern border. The federal contract is expected to be filled by early 2021 and will “enhance transparency and accountability while strengthening the safety of our agents in the field,” CBP said in a statement.
Lawmakers in Congress have pushed for years for a mandate that immigration and border law enforcement officers be required to wear recording devices. CBP has studied for five years how to implement a body camera policy but faced blowback from the National Border Patrol Council union.
Agents stationed in San Diego, California; Yuma and Tucson, Arizona; El Paso, Big Bend, Del Rio, and Rio Grande Valley, Texas; and in Swanton, Vermont, will be fitted with the cameras. The cameras can also detect gunshots: If not turned on, the sound of gunshots will automatically trigger the camera to start recording.
Two House Republicans from southern border states pushed appropriators to include millions of dollars in a 2020 funding bill to get body cameras on all border officers. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, also backed calls for the cameras.
“Nationally, almost 300,000 state and local law enforcement officers have embraced the use of body-worn cameras, and more than 60 percent of all police departments nationwide have in-car cameras,” Sinema wrote to her Senate colleagues in a letter. The Democratic-controlled House in June included $21 million for body cameras in the 2020 Deparment of Homeland Security appropriations bill.
Body cameras have been adopted by many state and local law enforcement agencies over the past few years as a result of controversial police shootings that led to activists demanding police actions be recorded.
