U.S. Border Patrol agents reportedly are venturing into the country to help apprehend illegal migrants with criminal histories.
Tasked with patrolling the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders, and coastal waters surrounding the Florida Peninsula and the island of Puerto Rico, Border Patrol deploys most of its agents to work the roughly 2,000-mile stretch of southwest border spanning Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
There, the agents focus on intercepting drugs and weapons, preventing human trafficking, and stopping people from trying to enter the country illegally.
With illegal border crossings having plummeted to historic lows under the Trump administration, Border Patrol agents are assisting with arrests of aliens hundreds of miles from the southern border, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who served during the Obama administration, said the buildup of military personnel in border states has allowed Border Patrol to help Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers in arresting illegal migrants.
"As long as they're [military personnel] there, and as long as numbers stay down, then I think they move Border Patrol agents to do more interior work," Napolitano told the Post. "When I was secretary, our focus was where the numbers were — and the numbers were on the southern border."
That's not the case now. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) last week announced that enforcement activities in June involved "zero illegal alien releases along [the] southwest border for the second consecutive month."
A 1946 statute establishing that the agency's jurisdiction stretches within a "reasonable distance" of the border allows the use of the Border Patrol in major cities such as Los Angeles.
The DOJ later set that boundary at 100 miles from any border, including coastlines.
The Post reported Border Patrol asserts it has broad authority to search vehicles, including without probable cause or a warrant.
"People who are away from the [U.S.-Mexico] border are starting to see the kind of aggressive law enforcement techniques that were pioneered in this constitutionally flexible region along the border," César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, told the newspaper.
Some people are worried that assisting ICE will take Border Patrol agents away from their primary mission.
"The Border Patrol has access to a lot of databases that local agencies don't have. So when they're partners in these task forces and they are working these more complex investigations ... if they’re being deployed instead to the interior, you’re taking away from that," former CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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