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Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump's Violent Immigration Crackdown - Wired
In the early morning last September 30, hundreds of federal agents swarmed the South Shore Apartments, a beige brick building on Chicago’s South Side. As feds in body armor rappelled down from a Black Hawk helicopter overhead, others crashed through the building’s doors with battering rams, rounding up residents at gunpoint.
A group of burly, masked agents wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, and toting suppressor-equipped M4 rifles, moved through the hallways in a rapid, tightly organized file. Padraic Daniel Berlin, a 34-year-old Michigan native and son of a Detroit firefighter, held Yoda, his Belgian Malinois, on a leash. David Dubar Jr., a 53-year-old onetime construction worker, followed closely behind him. Their team leader, Corey Myers, a Marine veteran from the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, checked apartment doors. Paul Delgado Jr., a standout cross-country runner in high school, was the final member of the entry team.
The four men are members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC. Based mainly out of Fort Bliss, with at least 11 detachments stationed around the United States, BORTAC and its sister unit, Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, or BORSTAR, were once reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels, and manhunts.
Under Donald Trump, however, they have been sent into the streets of major US cities. The result is the largest known deployment of BORTAC and BORSTAR agents in US history, a fact made difficult to pin down due to the government's secrecy around their operations. Many of the agents’ identities have remained hidden from the public. The decision to use an offensive, heavily armed paramilitary units for street-level immigration sweeps in American cities is a first—a bellwether of the Trump administration’s project to militarize domestic law enforcement operations.
A group of burly, masked agents wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, and toting suppressor-equipped M4 rifles, moved through the hallways in a rapid, tightly organized file. Padraic Daniel Berlin, a 34-year-old Michigan native and son of a Detroit firefighter, held Yoda, his Belgian Malinois, on a leash. David Dubar Jr., a 53-year-old onetime construction worker, followed closely behind him. Their team leader, Corey Myers, a Marine veteran from the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, checked apartment doors. Paul Delgado Jr., a standout cross-country runner in high school, was the final member of the entry team.
The four men are members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC. Based mainly out of Fort Bliss, with at least 11 detachments stationed around the United States, BORTAC and its sister unit, Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, or BORSTAR, were once reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels, and manhunts.
Under Donald Trump, however, they have been sent into the streets of major US cities. The result is the largest known deployment of BORTAC and BORSTAR agents in US history, a fact made difficult to pin down due to the government's secrecy around their operations. Many of the agents’ identities have remained hidden from the public. The decision to use an offensive, heavily armed paramilitary units for street-level immigration sweeps in American cities is a first—a bellwether of the Trump administration’s project to militarize domestic law enforcement operations.
https://www.wired.com/story/border-patrol-bortac-borstar-use-of-force-midway-blitz/