U.S. Border Patrol agents use high-speed chases to catch suspects along the U.S.-Mexico border, where migrants, U.S. citizens and random bystanders have died during these pursuits, reported Las Cruces Sun-News (LCSN) last week.

In the past five years, 13 people in southern New Mexico have died in a Border Patrol car chase. That's a huge uptick from the previous five years, in which no such deaths occurred, according to the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC), a San Diego-based organization of 60 border communities in California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico.

"Within the same time period, those four states saw at least 76 fatalities tied to high-speed chases instigated by Border Patrol agents," said LCSN, the daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of New Mexico.

According to an SBCC report, Border Patrol's chases are more deadly than its shootings: between 2010 and 2022, 38 percent of people killed in an encounter with immigration agents died from a car chase, car accident or vehicle explosion.

By comparison, fatal shootings attributed to the Border Patrol made up just 28 percent of violent deaths, it added.

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