Border Patrol administrator Diana Diaz has dedicated 15 years of her life to the agency. Its presence runs deep in her family — her brother’s an agent. And so was her husband. Jesus Diaz worked on the line for nearly seven years.
Now he’s almost halfway into a prison sentence.
“He’s been incarcerated for going on 10 months and my daughter’s 8 months old," Diana Diaz said. “So he’s never met her.”
Jesus Diaz, 33, was convicted of using excessive force against a Mexican teenager during a 2008 drug smuggling attempt.
The US Attorney’s office in San Antonio said the former agent violently threw the teenager to the ground during the arrest. But supporters, from activist groups to congressmen, say he was just doing his job. The smuggler wasn’t seriously injured.
Diana Diaz says she has been in the same situation many times.
“You catch illegals every day. If somebody tries to run, you hold their handcuffs,” she said. “You know, they’re handcuffed, that’s what you do. You see police officers do it. He didn’t do anything out of the norm.”
Prosecutors beg to differ. They maintain Jesus Diaz broke the law and was called out for it.
“To conduct yourself outside the requirements of the law, then that makes you not a law enforcement officer, it makes you a criminal and you should be treated as such,” said John Murphy, second-in-charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio, the Texas Western District.
Jesus Diaz and his supporters have a hard time accepting the truth, Murphy said.
“His fellow agents reported to their supervisors that they thought that he had used excessive force,” Murphy said. “They found his conduct to be disturbing, unacceptable and they didn’t want it to go unnoticed.”
But those backing Diaz say no other U.S. Attorney’s office in the country prosecutes as many border agents as San Antonio. They say the Mexican government, through its many consulates in the region, has a strong influence over the prosecutor’s office.
“Why is this district so hung up on protecting drug smugglers? It’s insane,” said Andy Ramirez, president of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council, an activist group near San Diego that tracks border agent prosecutions.
“One has to wonder if somebody’s hand’s in the cookie jar,” Ramirez added.
Prior to Jesus Diaz, there were at least two other high-profile cases handled by prosecutors in the western district.
The case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean made national headlines in 2006. Both agents were given more than a decade in prison for shooting an illegal crosser.
The first case was against Gary Brugman. He was sent to prison for two years in 2003 for roughing up an illegal immigrant on the run. It took place in the same popular crossing spot where Diaz arrested the teen in Eagle Pass, Texas.
“The only thing that I did wrong was think that the government would do what’s right,” Brugman said.
Brugman said Jesus Diaz has a long road ahead of him. Finding a job will be hard as a convicted felon. Brugman now works as a long-haul truck driver for a Texas oil company.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Border Patrol,” Brugman said. “I worked all my life to get to where I was and they wiped it out from under me with the stroke of a pen. There I was; I was done.”
John Murphy, the federal prosecutor in San Antonio, defends his office using a similar argument as his critics. He says his office is being unfairly targeted for merely doing its job.
“We consider ourselves to be in partnership with law enforcement agencies and officers. However, we don’t turn a blind eye to people who violate the law,” Murphy said. “And in fact, in my view, law enforcement officers and prosecutors have a higher duty to comply with the law than the average citizen does.”
Diana Diaz agrees. Still, the case against her husband wasn’t worth taxpayer money, she said. Either way, she maintained that Jesus Diaz may have been found guilty in court, but at home, well, that’s another story.
“You have six reasons to keep going, you know, he’s got six kids,” Diana Diaz said. “I told my husband, you left as a hero; you’re going to come back as a hero for them.”
The Diaz family could still get a break in the case. The conviction is being appealed. And, though it’s a long shot, supporters are also pushing for a presidential pardon.
