Wow. The Trump administration is sending what is called the SWAT version of the Border Patrol into sanctuary cities. From the Daily Beast:
The Trump administration is deploying an elite tactical Border Patrol unit from the southern border to take part in arrest operations in sanctuary cities across the nation. One hundred members of a team called BORTAC, which is essentially a SWAT-equivalent team of the Border Patrol, will reportedly be dispatched to cities like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, and others from February through May. A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection told The New York Times that BORTAC agents were being deployed to “enhance the integrity of the immigration system, protect public safety, and strengthen our national security.”
You can bet that illegal alien advocate groups will freak out over this, when it’s likely to only pick up hundreds of the literally millions of illegal aliens in the country.
Rather than raiding stash houses or confronting drug smugglers near the border, the agents will be supporting typical immigration arrests when in sanctuary cities. The newspaper reports the agents will be limited in their abilities during the arrests, meaning they will not be allowed to forcibly enter homes or engage in shootouts. In a statement, ICE’s acting director Matthew Albence said when sanctuary cities release criminal immigrants from jails, they increase the “occurrence of preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims.”
I think this is part of the “escalation” that AG Barr talked about against sanctuary cities. I don’t have a problem with this tactics, but I do get the sense that the administration is going after low hanging fruit instead of tracking down those illegal aliens who have committed very violent crimes.
In any case, as long as they’re treated humanely, it is simply law enforcement and shouldn’t be terribly controversial, but of course it will be.
Also, if you missed it, we had a very good discussion about illegal immigration on our podcast with our special guest Dana Perino from Fox News. Check it out here.