The Mexican government has asked the U.S. to formally investigate the use of tear gas and other countermeasures on migrants who attempted to illegally enter from Tijuana into San Diego, Calif., on New Year’s Eve and in late November.
A translated news release by Mexico’s Interior Ministry states it sent a letter to the U.S. embassy asking the U.S. government look at Border Patrol agents’ use of force during the incident overnight into Tuesday and the one on Nov. 25.
In the letter, Mexican officials called on U.S. federal law enforcement to “safeguard the human rights and safety of all migrants” and said the foreign ministry “deplores the occurrence of any sort of violent act on the border with Mexico,” the foreign ministry said.
Mexican officials plan to call a meeting with representatives of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the Border Violence Prevention Council, but no date has been announced.
On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said its internal review board was investigating a Monday incident in which Border Patrol agents used tear gas and pepper spray against people, including children, who attempted to illegally enter San Diego, Calif., from Tijuana, Mexico.
CBP said Monday its Office of Professional Responsibility is looking into agents’ deployment of 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, a type of tear gas known as CS gas, but did not respond to requests regarding the reason for the investigation.
On New Year’s Eve, approximately 150 people attempted to climb over and crawl under barriers at the border. Though many migrants turned back when U.S. federal agents arrived, some on the Mexico side began throwing objects at them. In response, agents used smoke, pepper spray, and tear gas upwind of the rock throwers and south of the border fence, according to a CPB statement.
The border barrier there is between 6 and 10 feet tall and is in the process of being replaced with an 18-foot bollard-style wall that will be difficult to scale.
The agency said its agents did not see any children affected by the gas, smoke, or spray in the January incident, though witness accounts shared with media contradict CBP’s claim.
Around 2,000 people who traveled as part of a caravan to Tijuana remain in the northern Mexico city waiting to apply for asylum in the U.S.
A similar incident in November, during which agents fired tear gas toward migrants who rushed the barrier and threw rocks and other objects at agents on the U.S. side of the barrier near San Diego, Calif., was also investigated by CBP’s internal review board, though CBP never said it was doing so or released the results of that report.
Border Patrol San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rodney S. Scott said at the time he had asked the board to determine if his agents could have better handled the situation, according to Arizona Central.
Following the incident, Scott said the use of force was justified.
“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,” he 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.”
In 2012, under former President Barack Obama, CBP reported using tear gas 26 times, though that number dropped over to three total incidents by 2016. Trump’s first two years in office saw the use of tear gas rise to 2012 and 2013 levels, with federal agents documenting using the gas 18 times in 2017. The Pentagon does not allow tear gas to be used in war situations.
