The Border Patrol Year of Unchecked Force

from Sergio OlmosCalMatters

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Border Patrol agents have been going from city to city for the past 15 months, away from their bases in California and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, engaging in an unprecedented campaign of mass deportations.

A collaboration between CalMatters, Obvious media and Bellingcat has followed these agents, documenting their tactics on the ground and through mountains of video footage, since their first proof-of-concept raid in Bakersfield in January 2025.

Exactly one year later, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Rene Goode in Minneapolis, followed weeks later by the killing of Alex Pretty by a Border Patrol agent.

Our investigation shows that, in addition to these two shootings, immigration agents engaged in a pattern of force and questionable detention, aggressive tactics that courts have ruled likely violated the Constitution, as they moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles and then to Chicago and Minneapolis.

In each city, federal courts stepped in to stop them from infringing on civil liberties in that jurisdiction. The agents were later sent to another city. Video evidence shows the agents’ tactics become more brazen with each stop.

Under President Donald Trump, immigration agents have operated without the typical public accountability. Many agents wear masks. Incident reports are largely hidden from the public.

“We’re now in a completely uncharted world with these undercover agents,” said John Roth, who served as inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security under Presidents Obama and Trump.

“The first thing you do when you give an agent a gun, a badge and power over the American people is make sure they follow the constitution, period,” he said.

In this new film, we focus on the activities of five US-Mexico border agents whose identities we have been able to confirm.

We are not aware of any disciplinary action taken against these agents. DHS did not respond to requests for comment; individual agents either declined to comment or did not respond to calls or emails.

We showed the incidents to Roth and Steve Bunnell, former DHS general counsel. Both have testified before Congress, raising alarm about what they see as a breakdown in accountability and trust in the department. Roth called the incidents “tough to watch.”

“There are kind of two key components to DHS and law enforcement in general being effective, and that’s trust and credibility,” Bunnell said. “And they’ve lost those things to the extent that they’ve had them.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.