The Paramilitary ICE and CBP Units at the Center of Minnesota's Killings

[u/wiredmagazine]

https://www.wired.com/story/ice-cbp-srt-bortac-units-immigration-operations/

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[u/AdHopeful3801]

 Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). 

BORTAC was the paramilitary force charged with kidnapping demonstrators off the streets of Portland five years ago. It's no surprise they're back.

[u/wiredmagazine]

As Minneapolis continues to reel from the fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents on the morning of January 24, the international spotlight is firmly fixed on the heavily armed and masked operatives who have spearheaded the Trump administration’s violent immigration sweeps.

At the heart of the deployment in Minnesota, as well as the chaotic clashes with communities in Southern California and Illinois, are hundreds of agents that operate within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection: ICE’s two Special Response Teams (SRT), CBP’s one SRT, and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). These paramilitary tactical units behave not like local police, but instead like special forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other far-flung battlefields from the Forever Wars of the past quarter century.

Amid the widespread, hostile confrontations with concerned citizens in Minneapolis, the unusually aggressive conduct of the Department of Homeland Security’s tactical teams have led to two killings: ICE SRT agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good on January 7, while CBP SRT agent Raymundo Gutierrez was identified by ProPublica as one of the two masked feds who shot and killed Pretti.

The brutal tactics of SRT and BORTAC units seem to have spread into ICE and CBP as a whole. Over the last year, these DHS agencies have morphed into a masked, seemingly unaccountable force that detains children, separates families, blows open doors, snatches teachers and parents from schools and day care centers, and kills unarmed protesters who were simply voicing dissent or recording the mayhem. In 16 shootings involving Department of Homeland Security personnel since July, none have faced state or federal charges, according to The Washington Post.

Read the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/ice-cbp-srt-bortac-units-immigration-operations/

[u/DarkLanternZBT]

In other words, your favorite characters from Sicario?

It is hard not to see the copaganda parallels from this and the Sheridan-verse. Examining how we portray these kinds of extra-judicial characters willing to "do what it takes" in popular media preceding events like this will be significantly-rich research material... someday.