This notification is being issued to the public pursuant to the CBP policy regarding Notification and Review Procedures for Certain Deaths and Deaths in Custody and the Department of Homeland Security FY 2021 Appropriation (H. Rept. 116-458) reporting requirements related to CBP-involved deaths.
On August 4, 2024, at approximately 12:30 p.m., Border Patrol Agents (BPAs) on patrol encountered a lone male undocumented noncitizen in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, New Mexico who identified himself as a 21-year-old Guatemalan citizen. The man told the BPAs he had crossed into the United States from Mexico three days earlier but had become lost. While speaking with the man, the agents noticed that he appeared weak and requested assistance from emergency medical services (EMS) by radio.
The BPAs walked the man to a nearby Border Patrol transport bus to cool him in the vehicle’s air conditioning and provided him with water while awaiting EMS response. The bus was equipped with video recording equipment, which recorded the man as he entered the bus on his own and sat down. Border Patrol personnel stayed with him while he remained in the air conditioning and drank water. Approximately ten minutes later, the BPAs determined that his condition was not improving and they began moving him to another vehicle to transport him to the Santa Teresa Border Patrol Station, where additional cooling methods were available. The station was approximately three miles from the noncitizen’s current location.
While the BPAs were assisting the man exit the bus, he became unresponsive. They assessed the man, determined he was no longer breathing and did not have a pulse, and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The BPAs contacted a Border Patrol radio dispatcher and requested the status of the EMS response. The Border Patrol radio dispatcher advised them that the responding American Medical Response EMS unit had been delayed because the responding unit could not determine where the man and the BPAs were located. After performing CPR for approximately three minutes, the BPAs placed the man in a Border Patrol van equipped with lights and sirens and drove toward the station with the emergency equipment activated. The bus driver radioed ahead to the station and requested personnel meet them outside with an automated external defibrillator (AED) and requested that responding EMS be redirected to the station.
At approximately 12:50 p.m., the Border Patrol van arrived at the station, where CBP contract medical personnel were waiting with the AED. The AED was applied to the man and the BPAs and contracted medical personnel continued performing CPR. Throughout several cycles of CPR, the AED advised that CPR continue but did not advise the delivery of a shock.
At approximately 1:00 p.m., Santa Teresa Fire Department arrived and assumed primary medical care of the man while they waited for an ambulance that had been requested from Sunland Park, New Mexico, an adjacent jurisdiction.
At approximately 1:05 p.m., Sunland Park Fire Department arrived to assist. At approximately 1:15 p.m., responders told agents that the man had a pulse, and they transported him to the Hospitals of Providence Transmountain Campus in El Paso, Texas. The BPAs followed and established a hospital watch. At approximately 1:55 p.m., doctors at the hospital advised the BPAs that they had pronounced the man deceased.
CBP Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) requested that the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner conduct an autopsy of the decedent. The autopsy report listed the cause of death to be from environmental heat exposure and the manner of the death to be an accident.
CBP OPR is reviewing this incident. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General was notified.