{"id":44830,"date":"2025-11-09T03:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T03:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/44830\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T03:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T03:15:10","slug":"trump-replacing-ice-leaders-with-border-patrol-raising-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/44830\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump replacing ICE leaders with Border Patrol, raising questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Border<\/a>Border Patrol officer directs a tourist from restricted area. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Across California, ICE agents have carried out a variety of arrests this year under the Trump administration\u2019s vow to deport more migrants. As they did, they drew the ire of many local leaders and activists, with protest signs like \u201cNo ICE\u201d becoming shorthand for a broader opposition to immigration enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recent reports, mostly anonymously sourced, say the administration plans to replace ICE leaders with Border Patrol leaders \u2014 suggesting that despite efforts to summon and arrest immigrants en masse<\/a>, the administration believed ICE still wasn\u2019t being aggressive enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Headlines painted the reported moves as a kind of ICE upheaval, saying the job change \u201cshakes up<\/a>\u201d ICE leadership, that the Border Patrol appointees would lead a \u201cmore aggressive<\/a>\u201d crackdown and solidify \u201chard tactics<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the idea of replacing ICE leaders with Border Patrol leaders also sheds light on the reality that many high-profile enforcement efforts this year were actually the work of Border Patrol, not ICE, raising questions about the roles of both agencies.<\/p>\n

Both are elements of the Department of Homeland Security. On their face, they have distinct missions. But their work during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term reveals how blurry the lines may really be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What is the difference between ICE and Border Patrol?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Immigration agents make arrests of people checking in with the agency at its San Diego offices, Oct. 21, 2025. (Photo by Adrian Childress\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, immigration enforcement activity was reorganized inside DHS under several different agencies. Two of those were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (with a stated mission to do \u201cimmigration enforcement\u201d and \u201ccombat transnational crime\u201d) and Customs and Border Protection (with a stated mission to \u201csecure the border\u201d as well as \u201ccombat transnational crime\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n

ICE oversees several different enforcement offices. CBP oversees both the Border Patrol and other offices, such as the Office of Field Operations, which operates the border ports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In theory, that left CBP responsible for the border, and ICE responsible for enforcement inside the country. But the reality turned out to be more complex.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, which entity arrests undocumented immigrants?<\/p>\n

In practice, both ICE and Border Patrol carry out immigration raids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In San Diego alone, ICE has arrested parents<\/a> on their way to or from elementary school dropoffs. Agents have detained asylum applicants seeking safety and placed them into deportation proceedings instead. They\u2019ve summoned migrants without criminal records to \u201ccheck-in\u201d meetings at ICE offices, then arrested those people en masse and held them for days in the courthouse basement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Agents put people into a van at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Stockton on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025. (Photo by Annie Barker\/Stocktonia\/CatchLight Local\/ Report for America)<\/p>\n

All those moves earned the agency widespread criticism. But other high-profile immigration raids actually weren\u2019t conducted by ICE at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arrests in Home Depot parking lots across the country, mass arrests in Sacramento in July, multi-day military-style operations in Chicago, including agents rappelling onto an apartment building from a helicopter and later being accused of firing tear gas on a children\u2019s Halloween parade \u2014 all these were conducted by Border Patrol agents, not by ICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t Border Patrol supposed to be at the border, and ICE in the interior?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not exactly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Border Patrol can operate nationwide. It traditionally has operated with the most intensity in an area colloquially known as the \u201c100-mile zone.\u201d Federal law \u2013 from decades before the existence of the CBP in its current form \u2013 gave border officials the authority to conduct searches and seizures within a \u201creasonable distance\u201d of the border. Agency regulation, not law, defined this area as 100 miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within the 100-mile zone, agents could act without all of the traditional limits of probable cause. Border agents have long operated both fixed and moving checkpoints inside the border zone, where officers can stop any car and ask about the immigration status of the people inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s interpretation is that this zone extends 100 \u201cair miles\u201d from the border including all coasts and waterways. In practice, that means much of the United States sits within the zone, including the area where two in three Americans live, even though it\u2019s far more than 100 miles from any international boundary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York, Washington, D.C., and the entire East Coast fall within the zone, despite being thousands of miles from Europe. Chicago is a 280-mile drive from the nearest Canadian border crossing, but because the agency considers the entire Great Lakes to be part of the coastal waterway, much of Illinois falls within the Border Patrol\u2019s zone. Similarly, Sacramento, more than 500 miles from the San Ysidro border crossing, is considered within the zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In practice, that may have made it easier for the Border Patrol to sweep for migrants in those cities. But recent court rulings also made a difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September, the Supreme Court ruled that race could be included as a probable cause<\/a> for immigration officers to make arrests. While agents must still have reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation to stop someone, advocates argue that the court\u2019s temporary ruling essentially gives the green light to Border Patrol to racially profile<\/a> people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the courts] are moving toward giving even more discretion to Border Patrol officers,\u201d said Deborah Anthony, a law professor at the University of Illinois Springfield who has researched the agency\u2019s relationship to the Constitution. \u201cMy view is that the 100-mile rule in and of itself is completely unconstitutional \u2026 it ends up putting everyone in a really vulnerable position.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the track record of an agency with that much leeway?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Border Patrol agency has had a checkered history for the past 20 years, with periodic accusations of assault, misconduct and murder<\/a>, and at least one Border Patrol officer who was found to be a serial killer<\/a>. According to the Southern Border Communities Coalition, since 2010, Border Patrol officers have killed 351 people, with 124 of these deaths caused by car chases gone wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, a secret Border Patrol Facebook group was discovered, which revealed a culture of racism and misogyny in which agents made fun of migrants\u2019 deaths. In Michigan, in 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union found that Border Patrol agents used \u201ccomplexion codes\u201d <\/a>to decide whether to search people, with 95% of people targeted being non-white.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even prior to the first Trump administration, frequent accusations of abuse against Border Patrol agents were ignored <\/a>by agency leaders.\u00a0 Between 2009 and 2014, more than\u00a0 200 formal allegations of sexual abuse of minors were made against Customs and Border Protection employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2016, a New York Times investigation <\/a>found that in the prior decade, Border Patrol agents had accepted at least $11 million in bribes. More than 100 have been arrested in corruption cases, and one study concluded Border Patrol agents were terminated or disciplined for performance more than any other federal officers.<\/p>\n

What is the agency doing now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

In May, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller set a daily quota of 3,000 arrests of immigrants nationwide. This led to more indiscriminate raids as well as arrests of migrants outside court hearings and at routine check-in appointments. These arrests require less planning and result in a higher number of people detained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These tactics fundamentally changed the type of people immigration agents are arresting\u2014 more than half of the people arrested by ICE in San Diego since the beginning of the year had no criminal record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, in late September, the number of arrests per day continued to hover at 1,100 people, far short of the stated goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anthony, the law professor, said an ICE office run by someone with a Border Patrol mindset raises new risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir approach is that they can enforce their mission in any way they view as appropriate without any recourse,\u201d Anthony said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anthony cautioned that even with the Border Patrol\u2019s practice of taking greater leeway in making immigration stops, people\u2019s rights still exist \u2013 at least in concept. \u201cBorder Patrol\u2019s constitutional exemptions don\u2019t give them the legal authority to simply ignore the Constitution,\u201d Anthony said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Anthony is concerned about how future court cases testing those rights might play out. \u201cThe shift toward Border Patrol operating more internally is very new. This is unusual,\u201d Anthony said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That shift raises the possibility that looser constitutional protections can \u201cbleed into other law enforcement agencies,\u201d like local police forces and other federal agencies, when Border Patrol officers have been transferred or involved in collaboration. \u201cTo see that expanding in any sort of way gives everyone reason to be concerned,\u201d Anthony said.<\/p>\n

ICE has yet to make a statement confirming a change in leadership in San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lillian Perlmutter covers immigration for Times of San Diego and NEWSWELL. <\/p>\n

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