At least five people were injured Friday afternoon at the border wall, about an hour east of Sasabe, Arizona. A Border Patrol agent was airlifted by helicopter to the University Medical Center in Tucson, according to the Arizona Department of Safety, after two Border Patrol pickups collided, one crashing into the steel border wall.
Before the crash, I was at a makeshift migrant camp at the border wall, when three Border Patrol pickup trucks arrived at high speed to transport a group of 27 people, waiting in the 100-plus degree heat to request asylum. Another Border Patrol truck arrived, his tires spitting gravel and driving so fast that one of the other agents shouted “Whoa!” to the driver.
Before the agents arrived at around 1:30 p.m., I had been speaking with some of the asylum seekers waiting under the shade structure. The group of men and women came from South and Central America, as well as Mexico. The only minor there was a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala who was unaccompanied. I was at the border wall to report on the impacts of President Biden’s recent executive order to restrict asylum. (I’ll have more on that in Tuesday’s post.)
“You are all here, illegally, right?” was the first question from an agent in Spanish. “Does anyone have papers to be here legally.”
The group responded, “no.”
“Okay, muy bien,” he said.
“Get in two lines,” he directed in Spanish. “One line for women and the other for men.”
Everyone lined up. After long, dangerous journeys and a wait of several hours in the desert heat the group seemed anxious but hopeful that they were finally getting their opportunity to request asylum. The agents directed everyone to get into the cabs and beds of the pickup trucks. Typically, people are transported by Border Patrol in white vans, which are safer, and not in the open beds of pickup trucks.
I watched as the convoy of four Border Patrol trucks took off again at speeds too fast for the loose gravel road, which traverses several hills and deep canyons along this stretch of border wall.
About an hour after the BP truck convoy left, I headed back to Sasabe with a group of Tucson Samaritans, and as we headed west along the border wall road, we came upon one of the Border Patrol pickup trucks smashed into the border wall. The truck appeared to have been hit from the side. A Border Patrol agent waiting at the scene for a tow truck to arrive confirmed that two Border Patrol trucks had collided but would not give any additional details.
Everyone was gone by the time we arrived at the scene of the accident. But Randy Mayer, pastor of the Good Shepherd Church in Sahuarita, arrived at the accident scene several minutes earlier than we did. Mayer said he saw a man lying on the gravel road and being attended to by agents. A DPS officer on duty Saturday confirmed in an email that at 3:11 pm Friday “A DPS Ranger assisted in transporting a Border Patrol Agent after he was involved in a collision. He was flown to UMC in Tucson.” Mayer said he and others in his vehicle also saw the 16-year-old Guatemalan teen and a woman in a neck brace being treated by agents at the wall.
Four migrants were transported by ambulance to a nearby medical facility, and the BP agent was airlifted, but none of the injuries were critical, according to Arivaca fire department chief, Tangye Beckham who said her department received a call for assistance at 2:02 p.m.. Repeated emails and calls to CBP for information about the incident were not returned Saturday. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s office said they were not called out to the accident site, and DPS said it had no role in investigating the accident and so had no further details, other than confirming that one of its helicopters had airlifted the injured agent.
Beckham told Samaritan volunteers Friday that there were no people in the beds of the Border Patrol pickups, only in the cabs of the trucks when they arrived. When asked on Saturday for details of the crash, Beckham said it wasn’t her place to comment. According to Mayer, Border Patrol reportedly had vans at another migrant camp site closer to Sasabe, where many members of the group we had spoken with were most likely transferred, before the accident, for the long drive to the Border Patrol processing center.
I took a close look at the wrecked Border Patrol truck and did not see any signs of blood in the bed of the truck. I’ve asked CBP for additional details, and comment on the accident and will post those if I receive them.
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