Border Patrol in U.S. Cities: Militarized Tactics, Viral Footage, and Community Backlash

In recent months, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from the Border Patrol have begun operating beyond the frontier and into American cities — from Los Angeles to Chicago, New Orleans and Raleigh — prompting alarm among residents, civil-rights groups and local officials. The deployments have produced viral videos, civil-rights litigation and heated debate over whether an agency trained for remote border enforcement should adopt a paramilitary approach in dense urban neighborhoods.

What happened on a Chicago street

One striking episode occurred on a Saturday morning in October in a quiet Chicago neighborhood. Resident and former prosecutor Brian Kolp watched through his window as two agents in military-style fatigues tackled a man on his front lawn. Neighbors gathered. Kolp — later nicknamed the “Blackhawks pajamas guy” after local coverage — ran outside and recorded the scene. What began as an arrest, he says, escalated: agents deployed chemical agents; two people were taken to the ground and allegedly suffered broken ribs; and community members described the atmosphere as militarized and frightening.

Why the Border Patrol is in cities

The appearance of Border Patrol agents in cities reflects a deliberate shift in enforcement strategy. When the administration promised large-scale removals, it initially relied on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But ICE’s interior-focused, court-centered, “targeted enforcement” model — which emphasizes research, restraint and prioritizing public-safety threats — was judged insufficient to deliver the high-volume results the White House sought. Reporters and analysts say the administration turned increasingly to the Border Patrol, an agency whose training and culture emphasize area-based patrols and a defensive, “act first” mindset.

ICE vs. Border Patrol: culture and tactics

ICE is accustomed to operating inside cities, coordinating with courts and avoiding detaining U.S. citizens; mistakes can be career-ending for ICE officers. Border Patrol agents, by contrast, are trained to secure wide, remote areas of the border and to treat people encountered in a patrol zone as potential threats. That difference matters: in urban deployments, agents in camouflage, helmets and tactical gear have carried out sweeps in parking lots, apartment complexes and residential blocks, sometimes using flash-bangs, tear gas, pepper projectiles and helicopter insertions.

Gregory Bovino: a public face and a flashpoint

Gregory “Greg” Bovino, a nearly 30-year Border Patrol veteran and former chief of a southern sector, has become a prominent public face of these deployments. Known for high-production social-media videos and combative rhetoric, Bovino has said he reports directly to senior Department of Homeland Security officials, and he has led high-profile operations that blend tactical assets with media spectacle. His motto-like messaging — exemplified by the line, “Nobody tells us where to go, when to go, how to go in our fucking country” — has energized hardline supporters while alarming civil-rights advocates and many within the agency.

"Nobody tells us where to go, when to go, how to go in our fucking country."
— Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol commander-at-large, in a widely circulated video.

Evidence, legality and public-safety claims

Officials have framed these operations as targeting “the worst of the worst,” but court filings and statistics undercut that claim. In Chicago litigation over alleged excessive force, the Border Patrol provided more than 600 names; only 16 of those individuals had criminal records that ICE considered indicators of public-safety risk. Observers call that a clear sign of a move from narrowly targeted arrests toward broader geographic sweeps and “collateral arrests” — detaining additional people encountered during operations regardless of criminal history.

Legal challenges have followed. Activist groups sued over racial profiling and other tactics in Los Angeles and elsewhere. A single-justice shadow-docket decision by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh allowed agents, in an emergency posture, to consider factors such as apparent ethnicity and limited English proficiency as part of reasonable suspicion. That emergency ruling will be revisited on the merits; it is not yet settled precedent, but enforcement officials have treated it as a permissive signal.

Scale, funding and possible direction

Inside the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol has been described as supplying roughly 2,000 agents to assist a campaign across some two dozen cities, though many of those deployments are low-profile support for ICE rather than the dramatic, Bovino-led operations. Recent federal funding increases — reported at roughly $170 billion for CBP and ICE combined — expand staffing and detention capacity, creating the capacity to hold far larger numbers of people in custody than in previous years.

Officials and reporters expect the deployments to continue episodically: move into a city, generate images and arrests, then shift when litigation, community resistance or operational friction piles up. New York City has been mentioned as a potential target for future operations, but analysts warn that dense urban terrain poses special challenges to agents trained to operate in wide-open borderlands.

Community response and the broader debate

Local organizers and residents have pushed back with constant filming, public alerts and whistle networks that complicate operations and raise the political cost of sustained deployments. Federal judges have sometimes limited tactics after concluding that force was excessive. The controversy crystallizes a broader national debate: how should immigration enforcement be carried out inside American cities, and what are the limits on militarized federal policing in civilian neighborhoods?

For residents like Brian Kolp, the episode left a lasting impression. His neighborhood later held its planned Halloween parade, but the morning of the sweep — when heavily armed federal agents moved down quiet residential streets — reminded many that changing enforcement priorities can transform everyday public life into a site of confrontation and anxiety.