“Border security is national security and the unwillingness of Congress to secure our border is a failure on their part to fulfill the primary function of our government – to protect the people. Sanctuary Senator Jeff Flake is a major reason border security remains a problem today.” - Dr. Kelli Ward
It’s 3:45 a.m., and the cars have started turning into an Ace Hardware parking lot, in a sparse commercial zone by one of the area’s many highways. The drivers park, get out, and open their trunks. They slip on bulletproof vests, holster Glock 26 pistols, and ready the batons and handcuffs.
Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams, about a dozen officers, are getting ready for a day of tracking down illegal immigrants. The targets are all in Riverside County, an hour east of Los Angeles. They are not the worst of the worst, but they are eligible for deportation because of their criminal histories: felony spousal abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, drug trafficking. Five of the subjects are Mexican; one is Lebanese.
Just after 4 a.m. on this Thursday in mid-June, as floodlights illuminate their silhouettes and cast shadows from nearby potted plants and bags of soil, the teams review the suspects and the plan of action. Standing in a circle, with some using flashlights to see the papers before them, the officers take turns discussing how each arrest will go down. Surveillance teams have already staked out residences and sought out chatty neighbors to figure out each target’s patterns. One heads off to work daily at 7:30 a.m., always stopping at a Chevron gas station near his house for coffee. Another comes home from an overnight shift every morning right at 8:40. The ICE teams prefer traffic stops, where the targets are easily controlled. They are safer. But some of today’s marks require a “knock and talk”—for officers to walk right up to the suspect’s door and ask to speak to them.
“If things go south on us and we have a medical emergency, there’s Loma Linda,” one of the leaders tells the assembled teams, referring to a university medical center 25 minutes to the east. “They have a trauma center,” he says. “Remember, this area is gang-infiltrated.”
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department has a station just a block away from where we are standing. Over the next seven hours, though, ICE officers will conduct surveillance, question and arrest people, pull over cars, and search houses entirely on their own, without the assistance of Riverside or any other local police force.
