EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The FBI and agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration are assisting federal partners who are conducting immigration enforcement operations in the El Paso area.
The FBI on Thursday released a video of one of its agents standing side-by-side with law enforcement personnel wearing “Police” and “ICE” on the back of their jackets as officers approach a house. ICE is the acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
And on Friday morning, the DEA shared photographs of its agents assisting ICE in an operation in a residential neighborhood somewhere in El Paso.
“The DEA, along with our Department of Justice partners, is assisting DHS and other federal law enforcement partners with their immigration enforcement efforts,” the DEA in El Paso said in a statement Friday.
Late last week, airplanes carrying soldiers coming to support border security operations arrived in Fort Bliss. On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state law enforcement agencies to assist federal law enforcement in their border security efforts.
The all-hands-on-deck approach comes as President Trump follows through on executive orders he signed during his first days in office to make good on campaign promises of cracking down on illegal immigration and deporting large numbers of unauthorized migrants starting with those who have criminal records.
Meantime, immigrant advocacy organizations told Border Report they are monitoring Hispanic neighborhoods to watch out for constitutional violations.
“If they come to arrest someone it should be with an arrest warrant, if they come into a house, we want to make sure they have a search warrant,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights.
Garcia said community members on Thursday documented police and immigration officer activity in Canutillo, an unincorporated community just west of El Paso. Earlier, Garcia and other advocates said community members, especially those in mixed-status families (i.e., undocumented moms with U.S.-born kids) about what could become widespread immigration raids under the Trump administration.
Video taken by community members shared with KTSM/Border Report shows a marked Border Patrol unit and other vehicles at a strip shopping center where law enforcement agents are milling about.
According to residents the law enforcement members parked at the shopping center, and then walked to a near-by mobile home park. There witnesses say they took one person into custody.
Another witness told our KTSM crew that law enforcement was actually in pursuit of a vehicle, suspected of carrying immigrants in the country illegally, and that chase finally ended at the mobile home park.
This is a developing story and will be updated as warranted.
Read: Read More