A memorial for Nikki Delgadillo (aged 31), Marylin Aileen Rojas (aged 27), and Marylin's daughter Delilah Madelyn Rodriguez (aged 8), who were killed on 14 October 2023 when their vehicle was hit by a driver being chased by El Paso police; 31.674386, -106.335643 (El Paso, Texas); Digital photograph; March 2025.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of people killed by police vehicle pursuits is at an all-time high; in 2022, the most recent year for which these data have been analyzed, 577 people died in crashes caused by police pursuits—a 40% increase from 2019. After California, Texas is the deadliest state for pursuit fatalities according to a Department of Justice analysis of such crashes between 1996 and 2015, and yet like many other states, Texas does not even bother to count them.
Border policing is a significant contributor to this body count. According to a recent study by Human Rights Watch, at least 106 people were killed and at least 306 injured in pursuits by Texas state and local police in counties participating in Operation Lone Star since 2021. And these numbers do not even account for crashes caused by pursuits conducted by the U.S. Border Patrol, which have also increased dramatically in recent years: between 2019 and 2021 alone, fatalities caused by Border Patrol pursuits increased eleven-fold, according to research from the ACLU of Texas.