'Hothead' US Customs agent ordered to prison for excessive force, taxpayers pay $125,000

As the son of Mexican immigrants who earned a college degree in criminal justice, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Oscar Orrantia is now headed to federal prison for slamming a U.S. citizen into a wall at the Columbus Port of Entry in 2019 and lying about it.

It wasn’t the first or last time Orrantia, 38, had been violent toward the public or abused his position as an inspector checking vehicles for contraband and immigration status, federal prosecutors asserted.

It’s just that the victim, 64-year-old Deming resident Anastacio Granillo, went to the American Civil Liberties Union for legal counsel after an angry Orrantia extricated him from his truck and threw him against the wall of a vehicle inspection bay on June 18, 2019.

Granillo hit his head against the wall and fell to the ground. When Granillo was unable to stand up as twice ordered by the agent, Orrantia forcefully kicked him in the legs until other Customs and Border Protection agents arrived, according to court records. Granillo was treated at the scene by an ambulance crew that was summoned.

Orrantia then went on to write a report “rife with false statements in an effort to avoid accountability for his actions,” prosecutors argued. A federal jury in Las Cruces convicted him of deprivation of civil rights and falsification of records last December.

“People who are lawfully seeking entry into the United States should not have to worry about being physically or verbally assaulted in their effort to gain entry,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ong wrote in recommending a prison sentence of 78 months.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland settled for 20 months but refused to allow Orrantia to remain out of prison pending his appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is to begin his sentence on Wednesday.

“Oscar Orrantia, through his conduct, not only violated (Granillo’s) civil rights, but his actions will have enduring effects making it more difficult for the public to have faith in those charged with guarding our borders, and principled law enforcement everywhere,” Ong wrote.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico sought criminal charges after learning of the excessive force allegations in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of Granillo in 2021. He received $125,000 in damages.

Prosecutors at the criminal trial introduced evidence of at least three other “bad acts” involving the former agent. They included a similar confrontation on Aug. 13, 2019, in which the uniformed Orrantia pulled a motorist who couldn’t understand English out of his car at the checkpoint, twisted his arm to handcuff him and told the man to “shut up” after he cried out in pain. The man wasn’t charged with a crime.

Orrantia was working the checkpoint on June 24, 2020, when he removed a mother of two from her car and handcuffed her. She was eventually released when a CBP supervisor reviewed the incident.

Additionally, Orrantia was off duty when he pulled up to a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 25 on Aug. 31, 2018, and was evasive, refusing to answer a Border Patrol agent’s questions, prosecutors said. He flashed his CBP badge, refused to allow a search of his vehicle, and wouldn’t get out. He was placed in hand restraints after agents worried about their safety. That incident resulted in a five-day suspension without pay from work, prosecutors said in court records.

Orrantia’s lawyer Brock Benjamin of El Paso told the Journal on Friday that his client didn’t use excessive force and that the jury shouldn’t have been allowed to consider the other incidents.

“This was an example of the U.S. government overstepping its bounds,” Benjamin said, particularly by mentioning two other incidents for which Orrantia was “cleared” and there were “no criminal allegations.”

June 2019 incident

Arrests of Customs and Border Protection employees on civil rights charges have been rare in recent years, with only two arrested or indicted since 2021, according to agency data.

“CBP stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission, and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees and officers perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe,” says the agency’s website.

Court records show the June 2019 incident began after Granillo and his cousin spent 20 minutes waiting to cross into the U.S. after visiting relatives in Mexico. After finally pulling up for the inspection, Granillo suggested that another lane of vehicles could be opened for inspection given the sweltering heat. Orrantia’s response: Don’t cross.

During the trial, Matthew Harvey, assistant director of the CBP’s Advanced Training Center in West Virginia, was asked whether, as an agent at a border crossing, he would encounter people complaining about having to wait in line. “All the time,” he responded. “You just maintain your professionalism. You’re held to a higher standard. Just because someone is complaining, agents aren’t allowed to use force.”

Testifying in his own defense, Orrantia accused Granillo of threatening him during the encounter on June 18, 2019. In the June 24, 2020, incident, he accused the mother of two of trying to smash his fingers and hitting his face when she opened her car door to retrieve a document that had fallen inside her car.

Asked at trial if he was known by fellow employees as a hothead, Orrantia said, “Maybe. Yes.”

Dozens of letters of support for Orrantia were filed with the federal court prior to his sentencing. All asked for leniency, including letters from three of his siblings who are also in law enforcement.

Orrantia graduated from New Mexico State University with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and worked for a time with the New Mexico Crime Victims Reparation Commission before joining the CBP in 2013.

He is the youngest of seven whose parents immigrated to the United States in 1980. He was born seven years after their arrival.

“My family had nothing,” wrote his older sister, Claudia V. Orrantia, to the judge. “We spent a lot of time in Mexico, and I remember crossing the international bridges almost every weekend as a young child. I saw my parents get treated terribly and spoken to like they were criminals simply because they did not know the English language and did not have the right skin color. “

She said her brother “made a mistake while doing his job. This does not make him a villain or a bad person.”

She referred to other cases that surfaced during the federal investigation.

“The three cases presented as evidence, including Mr. Granillo’s case, did not get my brother reprimanded, suspended, disciplined or even coached at the time of their occurrence. They were complaints from three out of thousands of people he had seen and processed in ten years in his career.”

One of the prior incidents involved an “older gentleman who works as an ambulance driver in Columbus and speaks only Spanish,” prosecutors stated in court records.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico opened an investigation into Orrantia in December 2021. Prosecutors had a video of the June 18, 2019, incident at the Columbus Port of Entry, and Orrantia’s report about the incident.

“The only reason a video had been preserved of the incident is because the victim in the case ... sought legal counsel from the ACLU,” stated a filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

That lawsuit prompted the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility to review the incident and consult with the U.S. Attorney’s Office regarding potential criminal charges.

“That investigation was limited in that CBP only retains videos from the port of entry for 90 days and by the time the case was brought by the federal prosecutors, nearly two and a half years had already gone by from the date of the crime the agent committed,” prosecutors stated.

“Accordingly, the only evidence that the United States was able to uncover related to other potential misconduct by Orrantia with the public was in situations where someone made an actual complaint to his agency about his behavior.”

“During conversation with other officers from the port of entry, the United States learned there were frequent complaints about Orrantia and his treatment of (vehicle) passengers. But because those individuals did not file a formal complaint, it was impossible to track those individuals down,” according to the court filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors stated that a “close review of the way he carried out his crime — i.e. switching from Spanish to English in a deliberate and performative manner during his interaction with (Granillo) — implies that this was not an isolated incident.”

“The incident has plagued him (Granillo) since it occurred, and he reluctantly (and bravely) got on the (witness) stand and testified against Orrantia,” stated the prosecutors’ sentencing memo.

“And admittedly, (Granillo) is a simple man. But that shouldn’t take away from the fact that his life has been forever altered by what happened to him on June 18, 2019.”

--This story was corrected to show that Orrantia's prison sentence begins Wednesday