This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
On August 13, 2019, a federal court document revealed that a Border Patrol agent, Matthew Bowen, had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for intentionally hitting a Guatemalan migrant with his truck in Arizona in 2017.
According to the plea agreement, Mr. Bowen, who was stationed in Nogales, will face up to one year in prison and could be fined $100,000 when he is sentenced on October 15 for deprivation of rights under color of law.
Mr. Bowen also agreed to resign from the Border Patrol. He was suspended in June 2018, after a series of racist and derogatory text messages exchanged between him and other Border Patrol agents were discovered on his cellphone.
The episode in question took place on December 3, 2017, when Mr. Bowen hit the migrant, Antolin Rolando Lopez-Aguilar, with his truck and nearly ran him over after Mr. Lopez-Aguilar appeared to be trying to cross into the United States illegally.
Mr. Lopez-Aguilar had abrasions on his right hand and both knees after being struck, and was charged with unlawful entry into the United States and transported to Tucson. It is unclear what happened to him after that.
Mr. Bowen admitted in the plea agreement that he intentionally struck the migrant with an unreasonable amount of force, and that his actions were not justified and violated the migrant's rights protected by the Constitution of the United States.
