Formed in 1984 to put down uprisings in immigration detention facilities, BORTAC is an offensive tactical team used for drug raids, counterterrorism missions, human smuggling and counter-narcotics operations on the northern and southern borders, at special events including the Super Bowl and, at least historically, overseas operations carried out in tandem with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In 1992, BORTAC deployed to Los Angeles in response to the Rodney King riots. Brian Terry, a BORTAC member, was killed in 2010 during a fierce 10-minute shootout with a drug rip-off gang using high-powered rifles smuggled from the US into Mexico as part of Operation Fast & Furious, a botched Obama-era Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation that triggered congressional hearings and years of damaging headlines.
From 2015 to 2019, BORTAC teams deployed 683 times, mostly along the southern border for manhunts, security details, and to serve warrants.
In 2022, BORTAC led the entry team that engaged and killed the perpetrator of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Though local and state police have been excoriated and sued in civil court by students’ families for their muddled response to the Uvalde shooting, BORTAC and other Border Patrol agents exhibited similar failings during the incident, per ABC News reporting.
During his first term, President Donald Trump sent BORTAC into “sanctuary cities” for immigration enforcement alongside ICE shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, a move that Kerlikowske, a CBP chief under former president Barack Obama, called a “significant mistake” given the specialized team’s usual high-risk assignments and aggressive posture. In retrospect, that episode six years ago, along with BORTAC’s role in suppressing protests in Portland, Oregon, and guarding federal facilities in Seattle, Buffalo, and San Diego, during the George Floyd uprising in summer 2020, prefigured the violent deployments of BORTAC and SRT to Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles over the past year.
BORTAC’s tactics have drawn countless lawsuits. Civil rights lawsuits filed by protesters in 2020 accuse masked, unidentified BORTAC agents of abducting them from the streets, roughing them up, illegally detaining, and releasing them without charge.
A civil suit filed by Carmina Guerrero outlines the “night raid”-style tactics employed by the unit, including warrantless entry into private homes. According to the lawsuit, dozens of BORTAC, ICE, and DEA agents burst into their Arizona home shortly before 5 am on November 4, 2009. Six children were present along with Guerrero, her three sisters, and her 60-year-old mother, who was thrown to the ground at gunpoint and cursed out by BORTAC members, the suit claimed. Carmina asked to put clothes on and was allegedly told, “You fucking whore, you don’t deserve any respect.”
According to the complaint, the family was taken outside half-clothed, photographed, and held at gunpoint in 37 degree weather while the house was searched. Another federal agent later told the photographer to erase the photos, according to the complaint. Two of the adult women in the Guerrero family claim they were physically assaulted and subjected to degrading sexual remarks by the Border Patrol agents. No contraband was found during the raid. No arrests were made. The house was torn apart. A warrant was finally presented at 1:30 pm that afternoon.
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