Border Patrol Assaults Reach Record High This Fiscal Year

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

It has been an especially dangerous year to be a Border Patrol agent.

This fiscal year, a record-high 671 agents have been assaulted while working, according to new government data obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The total assaults at the Customs and Border Protection’s three branches – Border Patrol, Air and Marine Operations and Office Field Operations. – were 720, compared to 585 last fiscal year.

The attacks most often target Border Patrol agents, who saw assaults increase 167% since the same period last year.

The Examiner wrote:

Despite the increasing rate of assaults on immigration and customs officials, the agency is using force against attackers at a lower rate than last year. Officers from all three agencies used force in 416 instances in the current fiscal year compared to 543 times in the same time frame a year earlier. The majority of those instances did not involve firearms.

Assaults have been on the rise since earlier this year and surpassed last year’s total number of attacks in the first eight months of fiscal year 2017.

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border fell in the first few months of President Trump’s presidency, but has increased over the last several months.