‘Arrogant and aggressive’: Why are border agents flocking to US cities? | American immigration
forThe system’s patrol officers have become ubiquitous foot soldiers in Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, and lawyers and human rights advocates worry that the agency is expanding its aggressive tactics into cities far beyond its traditional scope.
Led by Gregory Bovino, a particularly hard-line CBP sector chief from Southern California, Border Patrol agents have become a daily presence in many major cities across the United States.
Earlier this month on Chicago’s Southwest Side, a woman was shot multiple times by a border patrol amid protests against the Trump administration’s military raids on immigration in the city.
This summer in Los Angeles, border agents on horseback swept into a downtown public park, riding alongside National Guard troops and other agents in military vehicles. In Southern California, videos spread of Border Patrol agents chasing and beating 48-year-old landscaper Narciso Barranco.
Agents also made arrests in California’s agricultural Central Valley and in New York’s immigration courts. They set up immigration checkpoints in Washington, DC.
Lawyers and advocates say the agents, who are trained to prevent illegal entry, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, may not be suitable to conduct civil immigration enforcement in urban communities.
“Certainly the Border Patrol is very arrogant and has historically been very aggressive in terms of its enforcement responsibilities,” said Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, a law professor at Ohio State University. They tend to do their work in rural places and isolated parts of the United States. They are generally not trained in community interactions and policing.
Until recently, the agency typically operated near the southern U.S. border — especially along the southwestern border — although the department has long had the authority to conduct patrols inland.
Under the 1946 law, Border Patrol agents have the ability to conduct warrantless searches within a “reasonable distance” — or up to 100 miles — of any international border. These boundaries include international land borders as well as coastlines – so their scope actually includes most major cities in the United States – including Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. Chicago falls within this 100-mile zone, because the Great Lakes are considered a maritime border.
Nearly two-thirds of the United States population lives within the region.
However, until recently, it was uncommon to see Border Patrol agents straying from the southwest border, Garcia Hernandez said.
But illegal border crossings are now at historic lows, and the administration has deployed thousands of military personnel to the southern border, freeing up border patrols, ready and available as force multipliers in the administration’s deportation mission. The department currently has about 19,000 agents. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which includes the Border Patrol, has about 60,000 personnel, making it the largest law enforcement agency in the country.
Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has about 5,500 immigration enforcement officers, as well as an additional 7,000 agents tasked with investigating cross-border criminal activity. Although the agency is making a massive push to hire 10,000 additional agents, the process is expected to take some time.
It’s not clear exactly how many Border Patrol agents joined Ice and other federal agents in raids targeting Chicago, Los Angeles and other large cities.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s inquiry.
As border agents move away from their original mission, legal experts have raised concerns that they are bringing with them a combative enforcement culture. “CBP has a history of problematic treatment of people that is, in my opinion, probably worse than any other law enforcement agency,” said Deborah Anthony, a professor of legal studies at the University of Illinois Springfield who has expertise in constitutional law and the legality of Border Patrol operations.
Anthony said the Border Patrol has long enjoyed “more latitude” regarding the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution against random and arbitrary arrests and searches. She said they are able to set up checkpoints and, in some cases, mobile patrols, but these powers are limited by law.
Agents may not stop people without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation, or search homes or vehicles without a warrant or probable cause.
In recent publications, However, agents appear to be violating these restrictions. Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents, along with other federal agents, conducted a military-style immigration raid at an apartment complex in Chicago. Video evidence showed agents randomly breaking into the front doors.
“All the evidence points to blatant rights violations, whether in the treatment of people, in the lack of a warrant, in breaking down people’s doors, in what appears to be almost random targeting of almost everyone in the building,” Anthony said.
Immigrant advocates have had limited success opposing this type of indiscriminate enforcement. In a January operation shortly before Trump took office, plainclothes border agents streamed into California’s Central Valley, making random stops along the highway. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Border Patrol on behalf of the United Farm Workers union — and in federal district court Found That the operation violated the Fourth Amendment.
In July, a federal lawsuit filed by advocacy groups accused the Border Patrol, ICE and other agencies of violating rights by profiling street vendors, car wash workers, day laborers and others, and making arrests without sufficient cause — leading to temporary restrictions against such enforcement in California.
But proving Fourth Amendment violations can be a significant burden for advocates, Anthony said. The Border Patrol has a long history of aggressive enforcement tactics.
“There is evidence of everything from legal and constitutional violations to physical and sexual assault and abuse, and there is very little recourse or accountability,” Anthony said. “Internal discipline is within [the] The Border Patrol is a huge problem, and this has been systematically the case for a long time now.
2023 report by Washington Office for Latin America (Nor) and Kino Frontiers Initiative (KBI), an immigrant rights advocacy group, has detailed ongoing human rights abuses without accountability within the agency.