ICE Deployed

ICE and CBP Agents Were Deployed at Black Lives Matter Protests

People have taken to the streets across the country to protest the murder of George Floyd, who died at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. This exercise of First Amendment rights has been met with a militarized response—including the deployment of Homeland Security personnel and technology.

The presence of immigration enforcement agencies at peaceful demonstrations protesting police brutality is deeply troubling.

According to a leaked internal government document, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed more than 700 personnel in the Washington, D.C. area alone. Most of the officers were from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They provided “support” to other federal law enforcement bodies responding to protests in the city and near the White House.

The DHS memo lists over a dozen agencies that had personnel called or sent to cities across the country. Cities under surveillance included Houston, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; Spokane, Washington; Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Jacksonville, Florida, among others. In some cases, officers went to locations where protests were merely planned. The dispatched officers include those with tactical and military style training on special teams within CBP and ICE.

Some localities are responding to the protests by demanding accountability for Floyd’s death. The White House, by contrast, called in the cavalry.