Border agent, four migrants injured in collision between Border Patrol trucks

A border agent and four asylum seekers were injured in a collision between two Border Patrol vehicles Friday, on the border road east of Sásabe.

All five who were injured have been treated and released from hospitals, Rob Daniels, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Monday.

The crash, first reported by The Border Chronicle, appeared to have resulted from a collision between two Border Patrol pickup trucks at or near the crest of a hill along the border-wall road, said Arivaca Fire District Chief Tangye Beckham. One vehicle ended up crashed into the border wall, witnesses say.

The injured border agent was airlifted to Banner University Medical Center in Tucson by helicopter after the Border Patrol made a request for air transport to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said DPS spokesman Bart Graves. The agency is not involved in investigating the incident, he said.

The request described the injured agent as a 24-year-old man who was in stable condition and had been side-swiped by another vehicle, Graves said.

The Arivaca Fire Department responded with two ambulances to the scene, where they treated four injured migrants, including one minor, Beckham said. None of the migrants’ injuries were serious, and they were transported to Banner UMC South, she said.

The crash is under investigation by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Daniels said.

The asylum seekers involved in the wreck had been picked up by the Border Patrol less than an hour prior to the accident, around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, said Randy Mayer, co-founder of the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans. Humanitarian groups such as the Samaritans have a daily presence in the remote area, providing humanitarian aid to asylum seekers as they wait for border agents to arrive.

Before the collision, the Border Patrol arrived to pick up about 25 to 30 asylum seekers at the end of the border wall, where aid workers have erected a shade structure, about 20 miles east of the Sásabe port of entry, Mayer said Monday.

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Border Patrol vehicles were driving “extremely fast” when they arrived to pick up the migrants, who intended to request asylum, he said.

“They just came barreling in there very aggressively, just really careless,” Mayer said.

CBP didn’t immediately respond to the Arizona Daily Star’s efforts to confirm aid workers’ account of the events.

Mayer said agents often drive too fast on the gravel, hilly roads east of Sásabe. But they seemed even more rushed on Friday, he said, a few days after implementation of President Joe Biden’s executive order dramatically limiting access to asylum for migrants who enter the U.S. outside of official ports of entry.

“The Border Patrol has a lot of pressure on them right now, and they’re really kind of in disarray because of the executive order,” Mayer said. “There are enormous amounts of people that are crossing the border.”

Agents picked up all of the asylum seekers, and they loaded some into the open beds of the pickup trucks, Mayer said. But first responders told Mayer no migrants were in the truck beds at the time of the crash, likely having been transferred to Border Patrol vans before the collision.

“It could have been much worse,” Mayer said.