Fifty-five immigrants died in federal police custody at nation’s borders in 2021
Anna Giaritelli
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Fifty-five immigrants died while in federal police custody at the nation’s borders in fiscal 2021, according to new data that track how many cases were investigated by internal auditors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection shared new information on Monday that approximately one-third of the 151 deaths reviewed by its Office of Professional Responsibility between Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2021, occurred while interacting with or being detained by the agency. Approximately 1.95 million people were encountered trying to enter the United States without permission in 2021.
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The 55 deaths figure was significantly higher than the 10 immigrant deaths that CBP disclosed in media releases on its website in 2019.
Roughly one-third of deaths in 2021 occurred while being physically detained by CBP, while being transported, in a vehicle collision, while being arrested, and in other situations that directly involved the federal agency, according to the data.
Both Border Patrol arrests of immigrants who illegally crossed the border and Office of Field Operations officers who inspect vehicles and pedestrians at the ports of entry were counted in the 151 cases that OPR investigated.
The 151 figure also includes 96 deaths where a person died in the custody of a local, tribal, or state law enforcement agency, as well as while passing through ports of entry or highway checkpoints but not in custody.
The 151 known deaths were far below internal CBP data obtained by the Washington Examiner in August 2022 that showed immigrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border hit 556 in fiscal 2021 compared to 300 bodies recovered in 2019 and 247 in 2020, publicly available government data show.
When asked last August about the discrepancy between its 151 death count compared to other internal data that cited more than 600 deaths, a CBP spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the agency had begun to use a new method for counting deaths.
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“While CBP works hard to track this information as fully and accurately as possible, these data are not all-encompassing,” CBP said in a statement Monday. “These numbers may differ from other organizations that track similar data.”
Fiscal 2021 included almost four months that former President Donald Trump was in office and more than eight months of President Joe Biden’s term.