Calif. man gets 5 years for assaulting Border Patrol agents in Southern Az

A federal judge sentenced a California man to five years in prison last month after he crashed his car into a Border Patrol vehicle with two agents inside in early 2025.

U.S. District Judge Angela M. Martinez passed down the sentence of Joe Martin Cruz, 20, of San Pedro, Calif., after he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault on a federal officer and one count of transportation of an illegal alien for profit. Martinez sentenced Cruz in the federal courthouse in Tucson on June 23..

Cruz was driving four undocumented migrants in a 2016 Ford Mustang on Arivaca Sasabe Road on Jan. 14, 2025, when a Border Patrol vehicle began following his car, authorities said.

Cruz stopped, letting four people dressed in camouflage out to run into the desert, before speeding away. While being chased by law enforcement, Cruz intentionally hit a Border Patrol car traveling in the opposite lane, authorities said.

Crash data registered by the vehicles involved and evidence at the scene showed that Cruz had pushed the accelerator to 100% when he hit the officers’ car, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona said.

The force of the crash tore of the Border Patrol car’s rear axle and sent the vehicle spinning into nearby brush. Both Border Patrol agents were injured, authorities said.

The Mustang driven by Cruz flipped onto its side and Cruz crawled out, then ran into the desert.

Cruz’s sentence includes three years of supervised release after he completes his prison term. A restitution hearing in the case is scheduled for September.

Several similar incidents have taken place near Arivaca, the 500-person community not far from the border, southwest of Tucson.

Since October 2023, agents working under the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector have reported 181 assault incidents, including 18 in 2026.

Agents shot Patrick Gary Schlegel of Sahuarita earlier this year. Authorities said Schlegel had been caught involved with human trafficking on the morning of Jan 27, but fled in an older Dodge pickup truck.

He later abandoned the truck and was spotted by Border Patrol agents, who gave chase. While running, Schlegel reportedly fired a .45-caliber pistol at the aircraft.

Agents returned fire, striking him near Arivaca Road.

In 2024, a 70-year-old woman was killed while she and six other migrants were being driven in a Chevy Tahoe that crashed into a mesquite tree on Ruby Road, also near Arivaca.

Driver Samuel Lopez-Ozuna, a U.S. citizen, was charged with several federal offenses.

The unnamed woman and several others, including a woman with a severe cut to an artery in her leg, were injured and hospitalized.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico in 2023 said these CBP vehicle pursuits are a keystone of “our most aggressive immigration enforcement efforts” and “far too often end in serious injuries or deaths.”

Within the past five years, CBP policies on vehicle chases have changed at least three times.

In late 2025, under the Trump administration, CBP issued a directive for agents to “self-terminate” any pursuits where the risk to the public outweighs the benefit to law enforcement.

A 2023 directive adopted a “reasonableness” standard that still allowed for chases, but gave agents a framework to use when determining whether they should pursue a fleeing vehicle.

The directive updated CBP’s 2021 guidelines on vehicle pursuits, which enabled agents to chase suspect vehicles, but offered them the option to stop or restrict them and, in some cases, prohibited certain emergency driving tactics.