Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 7, 2014. Today, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released their existing Use-of-Force policies – established in 2010 and 2004 respectively. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also making the overarching Department policy, established in 2004, available. The policies can be found here. Additionally, today Chief of the Border Patrol Michael Fisher distributed a directive on the use of safe tactics and techniques with regard to use of force. That directive can be found here.
Below please find a statement from Secretary Jeh Johnson on today’s release:
“Since I took office as Secretary of Homeland Security, I have been very interested in the issue of use-of-force by our agents and officers in the field. As I said earlier this year, transparency is essential to the credibility of a law enforcement agency within the communities it operates. This is why I am pleased that Customs and Border Protection, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are delivering on a commitment I made in January and today are publicly releasing their use-of-force policies. The Department is also publicly releasing, for the first time, the DHS-wide use-of-force policy. Additionally, I want to commend Chief Fisher on his directive on the use of safe tactics and techniques released today, which provides further guidance to the Border Patrol workforce to lessen the likelihood of deadly force situations as we meet our dual goals of ensuring the safety and security of our dedicated agents as well as the public that they serve. I also support and commend his commitment to continue to assess the need for operational adjustments, dictated by situations in the field.”
Source: dhs.gov
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