This bill adds a new federal offense—evading arrest or detention while operating a motor vehicle—limited to conduct committed within 100 miles of the U.S. border and directed at those fleeing a pursuing U.S. Border Patrol agent or officers assisting under Border Patrol command. It creates a three-tiered sentencing scheme (up to 2 years; 5–20 years if serious bodily injury; 10 years to life if death results) and a statutory home at 18 U.S.C. §40B.
The bill also amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to make conviction for, or admission to committing, that offense a ground of inadmissibility and deportability and bars eligibility for asylum and other relief under section 208. Finally, it requires the Attorney General, with DHS, to deliver an annual report to Congressional judiciary committees with counts of charged, apprehended-not-charged, not-apprehended individuals and penalties sought and imposed.
The measure therefore merges a criminal enforcement tool with immigration consequences and standardized federal reporting on border-flight incidents.
At a Glance
What It Does
Creates 18 U.S.C. §40B making it a federal offense to intentionally flee a pursuing Border Patrol agent (or an officer assisting or under Border Patrol command) while operating a motor vehicle within 100 miles of the border. The statute sets tiered penalties up to life imprisonment when a death results and requires annual DOJ/DHS reporting to Congress on enforcement activity.
Who It Affects
Noncitizen and citizen drivers within the 100-mile border zone who flee vehicle stops, U.S. Border Patrol and cooperating state/local officers, U.S. Attorneys prosecuting these cases, immigration adjudicators considering admissibility and relief, and defense and immigration counsel representing accused individuals.
Why It Matters
The bill federalizes a class of vehicle flight offenses in border regions and converts them into immigration-disqualifying conduct, intensifying the immigration consequences of roadside conduct and creating new data flows for Congress that may shape future enforcement and policy decisions.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill establishes a new federal crime focused on vehicle flight in border zones. To convict under the new 18 U.S.C. §40B the government must show: (1) the defendant was operating a motor vehicle within 100 miles of the United States border; and (2) the defendant intentionally fled from a pursuing U.S. Border Patrol agent acting with lawful authority or from a pursuing federal, state, or local officer who is actively assisting, or under the command of, the Border Patrol.
The statute therefore ties the offense both to a geographic boundary and to a defined set of pursuing officers.
Penalties are tiered by harm. A baseline violation carries up to 2 years in prison (or a fine or both).
If the flight causes serious bodily injury, the penalty range rises to 5–20 years; if the flight causes death, the penalty range rises to a minimum of 10 years and up to life. Those statutory ranges create prosecutorial leverage and separate sentencing tracks depending on outcomes rather than solely on the defendant’s conduct.On immigration, the bill inserts the new offense into three places in the INA: as an inadmissibility ground (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)), as a deportability ground (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)), and as a categorical bar to relief including asylum under the statute governing asylum claims.
Critically, each immigration provision covers not only convictions but also admissions of having committed the offense or admissions to acts that constitute its essential elements—meaning statements short of a conviction can trigger immigration consequences.To produce oversight data, the Attorney General—consulting with the Secretary of Homeland Security—must report annually to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. The report must count people who committed the offense, those charged, those apprehended but not charged, those who eluded apprehension, and the penalties sought and imposed.
That reporting requirement creates a single, recurring federal data stream about prosecutions and outcomes that could influence resource allocation and enforcement priorities.
The Five Things You Need to Know
New federal offense at 18 U.S.C. §40B applies only to operating a motor vehicle within 100 miles of the U.S. border while intentionally fleeing a pursuing Border Patrol agent or an officer assisting or under Border Patrol command.
The statute establishes three penalty tiers: up to 2 years imprisonment for the baseline offense; 5–20 years if serious bodily injury results; and 10 years to life if death results.
The bill amends the INA to make conviction for, or admission to committing, §40B a ground of inadmissibility (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)) and deportability (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)), and bars eligibility for relief including asylum (8 U.S.C. 1158).
The immigration provisions reach both convictions and admissions to acts constituting the offense, allowing statements short of a conviction to trigger inadmissibility, deportability, and ineligibility for relief.
The Attorney General, in consultation with DHS, must provide an annual report to House and Senate Judiciary Committees enumerating counts of violations, charged cases, apprehensions not charged, unapprehended incidents, penalties sought, and penalties imposed.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Names the Act the 'Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act.' This is purely titular but signals the bill’s focus on officer safety and situates the measure within border enforcement policy debates.
Creates federal offense for vehicle flight within border zone
Adds a discrete criminal provision limited by two defining elements: a 100-mile geographic zone and the identity of the pursuing officers (Border Patrol or those assisting/under Border Patrol command). The provision criminalizes intentional flight while operating a motor vehicle and specifies sentencing ranges tied to resulting harm. Practically, prosecutors gain an additional federal charging option that can be used alongside or instead of state traffic or evasion charges; defense strategy will need to contest both the intent element and whether the pursuing officer met the statute’s identification requirements.
Adds the offense to INA inadmissibility, deportability, and relief bars
Amends 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2) and 1227(a)(2) and adds a new subsection to 8 U.S.C. 1158 to make conviction or admission of §40B a categorical immigration disqualifier. The language explicitly sweeps in admissions—formal convictions are not the sole trigger—so agency adjudicators and immigration judges will have to decide how to treat pretrial statements, plea allocutions, and civil admissions in the removal and asylum contexts.
Annual DOJ/DHS reporting to Congress
Requires an annual report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees with quantitative enforcement data: counts of persons who committed the offense, charged individuals, apprehended-but-not-charged cases, unapprehended incidents, and penalties sought and imposed. That reporting mandate creates a mechanism for legislative oversight and for Congress to track how often the statute is used and with what outcomes, but it does not prescribe enforcement priorities or funding.
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Explore Immigration in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- U.S. Border Patrol: gains an expressly federal criminal tool tailored to pursuits within a 100-mile border zone, strengthening prosecutorial options tied to officer-safety claims.
- U.S. Attorneys and federal prosecutors: receive a charge with statutory sentencing tiers that can be used to aggregate criminal and immigration leverage in plea negotiations and sentencing.
- Victims and injured third parties in high-speed pursuits: the aggravated tiers for serious injury or death provide a clearer federal sentencing framework for cases with severe harm.
- Congressional oversight and DHS/DOJ policymakers: the mandated annual report supplies standardized data to evaluate and justify resource allocation and policy adjustments.
Who Bears the Cost
- Noncitizen drivers (including asylum seekers, lawful permanent residents, and other immigrants): face heightened risk of inadmissibility, deportability, and categorical ineligibility for asylum based on convictions or admissions tied to vehicle flight.
- Public defenders and immigration legal services: will likely see increased caseload complexity and pressure as criminal defense strategy and immigration consequences intersect—defense counsel must manage both criminal exposure and collateral immigration risk.
- Federal and state courts and prosecutors: may face increased filings, coordination challenges when state and federal authorities both have charging options, and additional sentencing proceedings tied to the new federal statute.
- DHS immigration adjudicators and immigration courts: can see larger removal dockets and more cases where admissions—rather than convictions—trigger removal or bars to relief, increasing administrative burdens.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate goals against one another: strengthening deterrence and legal tools to protect agents and bystanders in border-area pursuits, versus expanding deportable conduct and immigration bars that can remove noncitizens for conduct that might otherwise be charged as a state traffic offense—raising questions about proportionality, federal reach, and the use of admissions as immigration triggers.
Several implementation and legal questions arise from the statute’s framing. First, the mens rea and identity elements—'intentionally fleeing' and 'pursuing' by a Border Patrol agent or an officer 'under the command of' Border Patrol—will generate litigation over whether assisting officers qualify and over proof of intent to flee.
Proving subjective intent in vehicle flight cases often rests on circumstantial evidence and post hoc statements; the inclusion of 'admissions' in the immigration provisions further complicates how such statements will be used across criminal and immigration proceedings.
Second, the 100-mile geographic limit creates an unusual federal zone: it captures a large swath of territory extending well inland in some states and may federalize conduct that local law enforcement commonly prosecutes as traffic or evasion offenses. Coordinating charging decisions between state and federal authorities could produce forum-shopping and inconsistent enforcement.
Finally, the immigration consequences attached to admissions (not only convictions) pose risks that the statute will magnify collateral immigration penalties for defendants who plead or speak candidly during investigations; that dynamic may skew plea bargaining, suppress defendants’ willingness to resolve cases, and increase the workload of immigration courts and counsel.
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