About a third of Border Patrol agents will wear body cameras by the end of the year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Wednesday.
The agency already began outfitting agents with body cameras, which are roughly the size of a deck of playing cards.
“Our agents and officers serve the public and protect our borders every day with great skill and professionalism,” Troy Miller, CBP Acting Commissioner, said. “Providing them with state-of-the-art technology and tools like body-worn cameras will support their work and provide greater transparency into interactions between CBP officers and agents and the public.”
About 6,000 of the agency’s 20,000 agents will have body cameras by the end of 2021. Agents along the southwest and northern borders will be the first to receive cameras.
After this year, the plan is to add body cameras to more agents.
The idea is to “strengthen CBP’s ability to document and review enforcement encounters and use of force incidents, and to investigate allegations of misconduct on the part of our personnel,” the agency said in a news release.
The announcement comes a month after the Justice department said that federal agents serving arrest warrants or executing raids will soon be required to wear body cameras. The new policy applies to the FBI, ATF and U.S. Marshals.
