Under Trump, Border Patrol arrests immigrants far from U.S.-Mexico border

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/22/border-patrol-arrests-us-mexico-border-trump/

Under Trump, Border Patrol arrests immigrants far from U.S.-Mexico border
Agents are arresting immigrants in cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Their expanding reach has sparked concern in law enforcement and immigrant communities.
By Marianne LeVine and Derek Hawkins

The Trump administration is increasingly relying on Border Patrol agents to help carry out the president’s mass deportation plan and arrest immigrants in cities far from the nation’s southern border — a departure from the agency’s traditional role that some lawyers and advocates consider alarming.

In the past month, Border Patrol agents have swarmed a Los Angeles park on foot and horseback; taken immigrants into custody at a New York City courthouse; raided a cannabis farm in California’s Ventura County; and detained day laborers at Home Depot parking lots as far north as Sacramento.

The Border Patrol has typically deployed most of its agents to the roughly 2,000-mile stretch of southwest border spanning Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Their primary mission involves guarding borders between ports of entry, where they are tasked with intercepting drugs and weapons, preventing human trafficking, and stopping people from trying to enter the country illegally. Now as border crossings plummet to historic lows, Border Patrol agents are arresting immigrants hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

The use of the Border Patrol in major cities such as Los Angeles is lawful under a 1946 statute establishing that the agency’s jurisdiction stretches within a “reasonable distance” of the border. The Justice Department later set that boundary at 100 miles from any border, including coastlines — an area that today is home to about two-thirds of the country’s population.

In that zone, the Border Patrol asserts that it has broad authority to search vehicles, including without probable cause or a warrant.

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