Border Patrol Agents To Be Equipped With Pellet Guns, Tasers Under New DHS Rules

Sean Brown

The 21,000 Border Patrol agents that we now have are now being forced to retreat if illegals are throwing rocks at them and are no longer allowed to block drug smugglers paths as they try to make it into America with their shipment under the new directions from top administration officials.

From now on the agents must keep their weapons holstered as the vehicles drive by since the instructions state that they can’t use their weapons against “a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents.”

The new rules that were signed by Michael Fisher, Chief of U.S. Border Patrol, force agents to flee when in harms way rather than defend themselves, saying “Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves.”

Although even in not allowing them to adequately use force when they feel it’s necessary there’s still ambiguous language that covers the collective back of the agency in case the new rules get one of their agents killed. They say that “Agents shall not discharge their firearms at a moving vehicle unless the agent has a reasonable belief that… deadly force is being used against an agent,” however there’s no real distinction as to what exactly “deadly force” is.

There’s also language within the new instructions that suggest penalizing the agents if they don’t retreat. They say that agents “should not place themselves in the path of a motor vehicle or use their body to block a vehicles’s path.”

The new rules came from the new head of the DHS, Jeh Johnson, and were recommended by a report from an advocacy group that wants to limit the policing of illegals trying to enter the nation.

The report came from the Police Executive Research Forum which the DHS commissioned to do. Within it they said that agents should be banned from standing in front of oncoming vehicles to stop them as well as not be allowed to shoot at illegals who are throwing rocks at them.

Even though mid-level DHS officials opposed the rules and argued that restricting agent’s ability to defend themselves “could create a more dangerous environment [especially for agents operating] in rural or desolate areas, often alone, where concealment, cover and egress is not an option,” they were still implemented and will be enforced per the wishes of the advocacy group.

The reason the report was commissioned by the DHS is because advocacy groups complained that seven people had been killed along the 1,933 mile border between 2010 and 2012 after Border Patrol agents had 67 different clashes with the increased flow of heavily armed drug smugglers and illegals.

(Read More: Senate Democrats Choose Illegal Immigrant Welfare Over Veteran’s Benefits)

Three Border Patrol agents have been killed in the past few years, one of them was Brian Terry who was killed with a rifle from the notorious “Fast and Furious” scandal that has yet to be resolved.

The latest restrictions being placed on agents has received praise from advocates wanting to increase immigration into the U.S. Such people include Juanita Molina who’s the director of the Border Action Network, Democrat Representative Zoe Lofgren, and Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey who drafted the June 2013 immigration bill which would increase the flow of legal immigrants and guest workers by up to 40 million over the upcoming decade. It’s worthwhile noting that nearly the same amount of Americans will be turning 18 over the same period of time.

Fisher said in a conference on Friday that they will be equipping agents with short range tasers and pellet guns along with pepper spray in order for them to deter attacks, sounds effective doesn’t it?

He was also reluctant to admit that agents have come under attack 6,000 times since 2007, having been assaulted with rocks 1,713 times since 2010 yet only responding with deadly force 43 times over the same period and killed 10 drug smugglers.

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