Crews Provide Emergency Medical Assistance to Undocumented Migrants

On August 2, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was notified of a 911 call indicating Mexican citizens had been shot across the border and crossed into the United States near Sells, Arizona. The Air and Marine Operations (AMO) aircrew and Border Patrol agents joined forces to rescue the injured migrants.

Crews rapidly responded to the situation. A Tucson Air Branch UH-60 Black Hawk crew diverted from its patrol to deliver a U.S. Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) team. Then, two Airbus H125 aircrews responded, one to conduct aerial overwatch and one to coordinate transportation of civilian medical service.

The agents discovered two people in critical condition, one with a need for advanced medical care, one with an arm wound, and one uninjured. Upon facing a delay from the civilian aeromedical service, the Black Hawk crew jumped in to directly transport those with time-sensitive injuries to a nearby medical center. Remaining individuals were apprehended and processed by Border Patrol agents.

The AMO and BORSTAR teams are specifically trained to handle these kinds of situations with both professionalism and expertise. Jose Muriente, Deputy Director of Air and Marine Operations at Tucson Air Branch, explains that these qualities are “crucial, especially when they encounter individuals with severe, life-threatening injuries.”

BORSTAR was created in 1998 as part of the effort to lower rates of injury and death for both agents and migrants on the border. The unit responds to both high and low risk assignments, providing specialized law enforcement and heightened national security. Due to their extensive training, they are the only law enforcement personnel with the ability to assist in tactical medicine and train international, federal, state, and local government agencies in search and rescue operations.

AMO provides airborne and maritime law enforcement. The agency consists of nearly 2,000 federal agents, 300 marine vessels, and 200 aircraft. They face security threats both in the air and the sea, depending on the requirements of a given mission. As noted on the U.S. CBP website, their efforts resulted in over 1,000 arrests and 90,000 apprehensions in 2023.

FMI: www.cbp.gov