From California to Texas, agents of the Border Patrol--the guardians of U.S. law and order on the frontier with Mexico--have crossed the line into lawbreaking and disorder.
The ignoble record in the 1990s includes agents prosecuted or disciplined for myriad offenses: unjustified shootings, sexual misconduct, beatings, stealing money from prisoners, drug trafficking, embezzlement, perjury and indecent exposure. Agent Luis Santiago Esteves, sent to prison last year for rape, prowled lonely desert environs using his badge to stalk women, authorities say.
The problems of the long-controversial federal border police have intensified in the past decade as illegal immigration skyrocketed, as the Border Patrol assumed a front-line role in the drug war, and as the force swelled to more than 4,000 agents.
A U.S. judge in El Paso ruled in December that the Border Patrol has committed "wholesale violations" of the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.
Prompted by the growing litany of reported Border Patrol misdeeds, The Times examined internal documents, federal reports and court files, and conducted more than 100 interviews in the United States and Mexico--including interviews with more than 50 Border Patrol agents and officials.
The investigation found that:
* The Border Patrol hires agents with dubious pasts, including criminal records and checkered careers with police agencies and the military. Pressures to rush agents to the international line exacerbate a flawed screening process.
* Management has failed to halt unauthorized shootings, a recurring problem that has led to criminal charges against agents and generated periodic international uproar. A Justice Department audit found that immigration agents violated firearms rules in one-third of 66 incidents studied.
* Physical mistreatment of suspects--"street justice" in the words of a recently retired supervisor--is a persistent occurrence that has triggered denunciations by courts, veteran agents, Mexican officials and international human rights groups. Fear of retaliation and a deficient complaint process discourage victims and witnesses from reporting abuses.
* Internal investigations of wrongdoing and discipline of agents are slow and erratic--flaws that top Border Patrol officials and the U.S. Justice Department acknowledge. Critics say weak oversight lets agents remain on duty despite lengthy records of alleged misconduct.
From its inception in 1924 as a loose-knit band of former Texas Rangers and gunslingers who engaged in shootouts with tequila smugglers along the Rio Grande, the Border Patrol has evolved into the nation's busiest police force, making more than 1 million arrests a year.
Charges of heavy-handed conduct have hounded the force almost since its founding. In the late 1970s, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights empaneled hearings on abuse by agents. Last year, alarm about Border Patrol activity spawned two congressional inquiries and a scathing report by Americas Watch, the international human rights monitor. The U.S. civil rights panel met again in San Diego last week to gather new testimony on abuse.
Last month, the Justice Department oversight official who monitors the patrol and its parent body, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told a congressional subcommittee that poor management foments misconduct and corruption.
The INS "is often indifferent when it comes to screening its employees and training them, much of their work is unsupervised, and administrative discipline is sometimes haphazard," said Inspector General Richard J. Hankinson.
Now, even Border Patrol loyalists are calling for reforms, notably some type of civilian review, a practice used by some city police forces but unprecedented for federal law enforcement.
"It will force them to clean up their act," said Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), a longtime patrol supporter. "You have a real problem with the Border Patrol, and they have to get a hold of it. They have some endemic problems that have never been addressed from the top."
Michael Williams, chief of the Border Patrol since 1990, rejected the notion that the agency is in crisis.
"I'm concerned and I recognize we've got problems," the chief said in an interview in Washington. "At the same time, I don't think it's as bad as some people would portray it to be."
The patrol has improved the training of agents, reviewed tactics and increased cooperation with Mexican officials, administrators said. Most agents exhibit self-control and "tolerance" despite the job's frustrations, said Gene McNary, INS commissioner during the Bush Administration.
Agents face "challenges that probably no other law enforcement agency has to go through," McNary said in an interview. "They just get waves of people who keep coming at 'em."
