4 Killed When Border Patrol Truck Crashes Near San Diego

A Border Patrol agent and three suspected illegal immigrants were killed early Saturday when the agent’s vehicle tumbled down a steep embankment in a mountainous region east of the city, officials said.

The agent was taking a group of suspected illegal immigrants into custody when his Ford Bronco failed to negotiate a turn on a narrow road amid the fog and mist and rolled nearly 1,200 feet down the mountain before ending up upside down.

The agent and three male passengers were declared dead at the scene. Four other immigrants were taken by Coast Guard helicopter to local hospitals.

The accident occurred in the rugged, deeply forested Dulzura area about 35 miles east of San Diego and five miles north of the border, an increasingly popular route for illegal immigrants since the Border Patrol beefed up enforcement and enhanced border barriers in less rugged areas.

The names of the dead were withheld until their families are notified.

“This is doubly tragic for everyone, since it involves both an agent and migrants,” Border Patrol spokeswoman Gloria Chavez said. “We’re all just trying to deal with it the best way we can, comforting each other.”

More than 80 agents nationwide have died in the line of duty since the Border Patrol was formed in 1924. The number of illegal immigrants who have died of various causes while making the trek into this country is in the hundreds.

In 1996, an agent making a U-turn on California 78 in eastern Imperial County so that he could begin pursuing a van of suspected illegal immigrants was fatally injured when his vehicle was struck by a pickup truck.

In 1995, an agent chasing illegal immigrants died after falling 120 feet down a ravine east of San Diego. And in 1987, an agent died when his vehicle crashed into the All-American Canal, east of Calexico, Calif.

Saturday’s crash occurred shortly before 7 a.m. The incident was reported minutes later by three illegal immigrants who had hiked from the crash scene and flagged down a Border Patrol agent driving along Otay Truck Trail. The three had been ejected from the truck when it began tumbling.

An immigrants rights group blamed the deaths on Operation Gatekeeper, the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration that has led immigrants to take greater risks.

“We wonder how many deaths it’s going to take before our government takes a more humane approach to our neighbors to the south,” said Rosemary Johnston, a leader with an interfaith group calling for a change in U.S. immigration policy.