In an effort to quell concerns from human and civil rights groups regarding the treatment of immigrants along the U.S. and Mexico border, the U.S. Border Patrol implemented a new set of regulations on the use of deadly to its agents Friday.

According to Al Jazeera America, Border Patrol Chief Mike Fisher's new directive states that agents should not fire their guns "unless the agent has a reasonable belief, based on the totality of the circumstances, to include the size and nature of the projectiles, that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious injury."

The issues arose in previous years after numerous U.S. agents were criticized for being too trigger happy when it came to dealing with rock thrower and other threats from immigrants across the border.

The patrol agency said it would teach officers how to properly diffuse threats after 16 senators reviewed its use-of-force policies in 2012.

Al Jazeera reports that the Border Patrol's overseer, Customs and Border Protection, was also being judged for allowing its agents to open fire on people believed to be throwing rocks at them. A report from the Police Executive Research Forum, which led the government-commissioned review, advised that the Border Patrol should ban deadly force against rock throwers. Fisher told the Associated Press that the ban, which the CBP rejected, would have been too restrictive for its agents.

According to the PERF report, "some border agents stood in front of moving vehicles as a pretext to open fire and that agents could have moved away from rock throwers instead of shooting at them."

The Los Angeles Times reported that the trigger-happy patrol agents have contributed to at least 19 deaths along the border since 2010.

Since 2007, three agents were killed while other agents reported more than 6,000 assaults, Fisher said. The agents were assaulted with rocks 1,713 times since 2010, which resulted in agents opening fire and killing 10 people.

The new regulations will be similar to the practices of local and urban law enforcement agencies. The directive states that "less-than-lethal equipment" should be used to deflate tires fleeing from the patrol agency and to take cover from falling rocks.

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