WASHINGTON – Long distance from South Texas, sheriff’s deputies, local and county police, Texas Rangers and Highway Patrol soldiers, U.S. Border Patrol officers, immigration officers and other law enforcement officers work together on a daily basis.
Therefore, it was not uncommon for Border Patrol officers and the Immigration and Customs Commission to respond on Tuesday to the desperate request for support from the Uvalde Police Department. However, it was very unusual for ICE officers to be pulling children out of school windows and for Border Patrol officers to play such a central role in response to a school shooter firing bullets. who killed him.
Uvalde police called for tactical equipment when they requested a reservation, and members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, the agency’s version of a SWAT team, left what they were doing and went to the ‘school, about a 40-minute drive from where they had been working on the southwestern border.
(While the Border Patrol’s mission is to secure the nation’s international borders, it is allowed to operate up to 100 miles from a land or coastal border.)
Ultimately, about 35 minutes after members of the unit arrived at the school, Steven C. McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Homeland Security, said Friday at a news conference that he was a shooter. of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit or BORTAC. , which killed the gunman around 12:50 p.m.
At the press conference, Mr. McCraw said local police had been in charge of the response and that not sending law enforcement officers to the classroom where the gunman had been for more than an hour had been “a wrong decision.”
The Border Patrol created the BORTAC unit in 1984, in response to riots at immigrant detention centers. Since then, unit officers have sometimes found themselves in high-profile situations. In April 2000, he was a BORTAC agent who seized Elián González, the Cuban boy who was at the center of an international battle for custody. The officer grabbed the boy from his uncle’s grandfather’s arms after officers stormed into the Miami home where Elián had been staying.
The unknown unit, based in El Paso, has about 250 agents. Its members operate more often along the country’s borders, carrying out operations such as breaking into hidden houses where smugglers hide drugs and weapons. Most of the people targeted by the unit are violent, with a long criminal record. Its agents have improved training, such as Special Forces; they usually carry stun grenades and have sniper certifications. They arrived at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday with three ballistic shields, designed to stop or deflect bullets and other projectiles.
Being a member of the unit involves a three-week selection process that includes constant physical and mental stress and deprivation of food and sleep.
“We are looking for a general combination of toughness, heart, intelligence and integrity,” said Mike Marino, BORTAC’s supervising agent, earlier this year. “The goal is to evaluate in someone what is normally immeasurable. You have to have an idea of the true being of the person. “
Members of the unit also operate around the world and have provided training and support for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The unit has been criticized for some of its actions, including its involvement in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to quell protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon, in 2020, following the assassination of George Floyd. That June, Mr. Trump sent 66 officers from the specialized unit, along with other federal police officers, to Pearland, Texas, for Mr. Burial’s funeral service. Floyd, a black man murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Mr. Trump also sent members of the unit to so-called sanctuary cities, where local police are instructed not to assist federal immigration enforcement officers. They were sent to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in detaining undocumented immigrants. Many saw the operation as a scare tactic, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
A BORTAC agent working in the Rio Grande Valley in 2018. The unit has provided military training worldwide. Credit … Latif / Reuters Addresses
While it is rare for the BORTAC team to play such a central role in responding to a local crime, it has happened before.
In 2015, team members helped hunt down fugitive convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat in New York State. A member of the team shot and killed Mr. Matt, after the team found him hiding in the woods.
Many agents and officers of the Border Patrol with Customs and Border Protection, its parent agency, live in the area of Uvalde, which is part of the Del Rio Border Patrol sector, 245 miles long. The sector includes a station and a traffic control one hour from the U.S. border with Mexico. Parts of the Texas border are popular crossing points for undocumented migrants, and Border Patrol officers, in their green uniforms, are everywhere.
Raúl Ortiz, the head of the Border Patrol, said that when his agents received a call about the Uvalde shooting at around 11.30 this Tuesday, between 80 and 100 of them, both inside and outside of service, they went to the school.
“Right away, we decided we needed to get involved,” Mr. Ortiz on Wednesday on CNN.
Members of different police forces in Uvalde. In situations like Tuesday’s, “all local law enforcement agencies react and respond,” a police chief said. Credit … Christopher Lee for The New York Times
“People who work in law enforcement, especially in South Texas, have such a strong, almost familiar common bond,” said Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Texas Combined Law Enforcement Associations, a professional association. . “Sometimes in South Texas, law enforcement just looks like one thing.”
McAllen, Texas Police Department Chief Victor Rodriguez said the Border Patrol works so closely with local law enforcement that it is considered another police asset in the community.
Very often, he said, the incidents to which the Border Patrol responds along with local agents are related to immigration.
In a situation like the school shooting in Uvalde, Mr. Rodriguez said, “All local law enforcement agencies react and respond to see if they can help.”
Edgar Sandoval contributed to the report from Uvalde, Texas.