Administration sends elite reinforcements to sanctuary cities

FPI / February 16, 2020

The Trump administration is sending members of an elite Border Patrol unit to sanctuary cities around the nation to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in locating and apprehending illegal immigrants.

Members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) will be helping ICE officers arrest criminal illegals who are living at large in sanctuary cities, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman Lawrence Payne told The Daily Caller on Saturday.

“BORTAC officers — considered the SWAT team of the Border Patrol — are specially trained for high-risk operations and typically execute operations against violent targets,” the Daily Caller noted.

Additionally, 50 Border Patrol agents and 50 Office of Field Operations officers are part of the deployment.

The move is the latest step taken by President Donald Trump to help ICE conduct operations in leftist-run cities which refuse to help ICE catch criminal illegals.

During his State of the Union address, Trump specifically called out sanctuary cities, inviting as his guest the brother of a man slain by an illegal immigrant who was wanted by ICE.

The Department of Homeland (DHS) said the deployment was needed because many ICE agents have been reassigned to the U.S.-Mexico border and operations in the interior of the country were stretched thin.

“With 5,300 [Enforcement and Removal Operations] law enforcement officers — some of whom were detailed to the border — ICE does not have sufficient resources to effectively manage the sustained increase in non-detained cases which is exacerbated by the rise of sanctuary jurisdictions. The CBP agents and officers who are being detailed to help ICE come from a number of different sectors and job positions,” a DHS statement said.

“While some of them are trained in tactical operations, that is one of the many areas of training. These officers have also been trained in routine immigration enforcement actions which is what they have been asked to do,” the statement said.

Free Press International