‘Cavalier and aggressive’: why are border agents flooding into US cities? | US immigration

BLaw enforcement patrol officers have become omnipresent foot soldiers in Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, and lawyers and human rights advocates worry that the agency is expanding its aggressive tactics to cities far from its conventional radius of action.

Led by Gregory Bovino, head of Southern California’s particularly hard-line Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol agents now have a daily presence in several major U.S. cities.

Earlier this month on Chicago’s Southwest Side, a Border Patrol officer shot a woman multiple times amid protests against militarized immigration raids in the city.

This summer in Los Angeles, border agents on horseback invaded a downtown public park, alongside National Guard troops and other agents in military vehicles. In Southern California, videos of Border Patrol agents cornering and beating Narciso Barranco, a 48-year-old landscaper, went viral.

Agents also made arrests in California’s agricultural Central Valley and at immigration courthouses in New York. They set up immigration checkpoints in Washington DC.

Lawyers and human rights advocates say these agents, trained to block illegal entries, drug smugglers and human traffickers at the country’s borders, may not be suited to controlling civil immigration in urban communities.

“The Border Patrol is certainly quite cavalier and has always been very aggressive in carrying out its enforcement responsibilities,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. They tend to perform their work in rural areas and isolated regions of the United States. And they are generally not trained in community interactions and policing.

Until recently, the agency generally worked near the U.S. southern border — particularly along the southwest border — although the department has long had the authority to patrol further inland.

Under a 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 borders include international land borders as well as coastlines – so their scope actually encompasses most major US cities – including Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC. Chicago falls within this 100-mile zone because the Great Lakes are considered a maritime boundary.

Nearly two-thirds of the American population lives in this area.

Still, García Hernández said, until recently, it was very rare to see Border Patrol agents stray from the southwest border.

But now, illegal border crossings are at an all-time low, and the administration has deployed thousands of troops to the southern border, freeing up the Border Patrol, he said — ready and available as a force multiplier in the administration’s deportation mission. The department currently has approximately 19,000 officers. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which encompasses the Border Patrol, has approximately 60,000 personnel, making it the nation’s largest law enforcement agency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), meanwhile, has approximately 5,500 agents responsible for enforcing immigration laws, as well as an additional 7,000 agents responsible for investigating cross-border criminal activity. Even if the agency makes a massive effort to hire 10,000 additional agents, that process is expected to take some time.

It’s unclear how many Border Patrol agents joined Ice and other federal agents in raids targeting Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities.

DHS did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s question.

As border agents stray from their original mission, legal experts worry that they are bringing with them a culture of combative enforcement. “CBP has a history of problematic treatment of people, in my opinion, perhaps worse than any other law enforcement agency,” said Deborah Anthony, a legal studies professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield with expertise in constitutional law and the legalities of Border Patrol operations.

The Border Patrol has long had “more latitude” thanks to the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against random and arbitrary stops and searches, Anthony said. They are able to establish checkpoints and, in some cases, roving patrols, she explained – but these authorities are limited by law.

Officers cannot arrest people without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation, nor can they search homes or vehicles without a warrant or probable cause.

In recent deployments, however, officers appear to ignore these restrictions. Earlier this month, Border Patrol agents, along with other federal agents, conducted a military-style immigration raid on a Chicago apartment complex. Video evidence showed officers bursting indiscriminately through the front doors.

“All the evidence suggests that there were egregious rights violations, both in the treatment of people, in the lack of a warrant, in the breaking down of doors, in what appears to be almost indiscriminate targeting of almost everyone in the building,” Anthony said.

Immigrant advocates have had limited success in opposing this type of indiscriminate enforcement. In a January operation shortly before Trump took office, plainclothes border agents flocked to California’s Central Valley region, conducting random checks along the highway. In response, the ACLU sued the Border Patrol on behalf of the United Farm Workers union — and a federal district court found the operation violated the Fourth Amendment.

And in June, a federal lawsuit filed by advocacy groups accused the Border Patrol, ICE and other agencies of violating rights by profiling street vendors, car washers, day laborers and others, and making arrests without just cause — leading to a temporary restriction on such enforcement in California and parts of the West Coast.

But proving such Fourth Amendment violations can pose a heavy burden for defenders, Anthony said. And Border Patrol has a long history of aggressive enforcement tactics.

“There is evidence of everything from legal and constitutional violations to physical and sexual abuse and mistreatment, and very little recourse or accountability,” Anthony said. “The internal discipline within [the] The Border Patrol is very problematic, and has been consistently that way for a long time.”

A 2023 report by the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) and the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), migrant rights groups, detailed persistent human rights violations without accountability within the agency.