Customs and Border Patrol Set to Deploy Elite Units to Sanctuary Cities to Assist ICE

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Feb 17, 2020
Office of Field Operations Special Response Team Members from the Los Angels and San Diego Field Offices work together with Agents from the San Diego Branch of Air and Marine Operations to train and qualify in Helicopter Rope Suspension Techniques. Photos by Mani Albrecht U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs Visual Communications Division

Customs and Border Patrol is preparing to redeploy some of the agency’s highly trained tactical personnel throughout the nation’s “sanctuary cities” in order to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The New York Times reported on the development Friday, that signals the Department of Homeland Security(which presides over both entities) is dead serious about national immigration enforcement, even in scofflaw municipalities that have sought to neuter it.

According to the report, more than 100 of CBP’s agents are being deployed throughout the nation to assist in ICE operations. It’s possible the agents could be tasked with apprehending illegal alien fugitives who are released onto the streets from local jail custody. They’ve been described as members of a unit known as BORTAC, an unit of personnel analogous to CBP’s SWAT team.

It’s common for sanctuary city jurisdictions to release individuals who are often violent criminals from custody, ignoring ICE detainer requests that the fugitives be instead handed over to face federal charges for immigration violations.

Sanctuary cities often create unnecessary risks to public safety by forcing ICE to arrest dangerous criminals off of the streets, when they could’ve been simply handed over from municipal jail systems to the federal agency. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of one of America’s biggest cities, openly admits that Los Angeles simply does not participate in immigration enforcement.

If scofflaw cities such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles are truly determined to undermine immigration law enforcement, then so be it. Attorney General Bill Barr has followed the lead of his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, in instituting new measures to punish the open borders cities, restricting them from federal law enforcement programs.

Conservatives shouldn’t be afraid of advocating for a strong federal government that will step in to perform the law enforcement duties sanctuary cities are cowering away from.