Border Patrol agents tackle alleged human smugglers in west El Paso

ABC-7 Photographer David Avila was not far from our television studios when he noticed a Border Patrol unit stopped on the corner of Executive Center Blvd. and N. Mesa Street; he then saw agents chase two men.

Avila watched when that first takedown happened, prompting him to capture video of a second takedown by a Border Patrol agent in plain clothes who grabs a man around the neck and wrestles him to the ground, eventually arresting him.

Border Patrol agent Cordero said the two men are suspected human smugglers.

Border Patrol had previously said the men were more likely migrants.

Cordero says plain-clothes agents, like the one whose face ABC-7 blurred on the video, have been investigating human traffickers responsible for helping immigrants enter the U.S. illegally.

The Customs and Border Protection Use of Force Policy Indicates that “any use of less-lethal force must be both objectively reasonable and necessary in order to carry out the Authorized Officer’s/Agent’s law enforcement duties.” (You can see the entire force policy handbook at the end of this article.)

“We need to prevent them from getting in vehicles, prevent that situation from becoming into a failure to yield situation, we’re gonna be chasing vehicles up and down the streets in El Paso. We don’t want it to come to that point.”said Cordero.

Cordero was with ABC-7 when immigrants openly crossed the Rio Grande in broad daylight, directed by smugglers who remain in Mexico.

However, the men captured Thursday are going beyond just working in Mexico.

“What you’re looking at, what you saw this morning are the ones that are aready in the United States, those smuggling organizations that are operating both in Mexico and in the U.S., and obviously they don’t want to get caught.” Cordero told ABC-7.