John Publius (a pseudonym) writes:

As a veteran of the war on terror, I have spent the past year watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers expand their operations across the country on a heretofore unprecedented scale and with a new faux-military bearing. From equipment to weapons to tactics, ICE and other immigration enforcement bodies want to be seen as combat forces carrying out their missions. Witness on Thursday, when White House border czar Tom Homan talked about Minneapolis as a “theater” for his agents. Overlooking that ICE is not, in fact, part of the armed services of the US—it’s a civilian law enforcement agency—it is useful to break down their operations through a military lens to find the strategic implications. Because if an agency wants to cosplay as a military force, it deserves to be evaluated as one.

Let’s start with the tools of the trade: equipment, uniforms, and armament. From the military perspective, soldiers choose the appropriate equipment and armament for the mission. An infantry squad would not go into a jungle campaign equipped for an urban fight. Squads in Iraq and Afghanistan often “dressed down” for counterinsurgency missions, where building mutual trust with locals was more important than showing up as if ready for World War III. Sometimes, units went into the opposite posture when a show of force was needed. Equipment, armament, and tactical employment vary from mission to mission.

ICE agents—civil representatives of the law, remember—often show up to raids kitted out as if they’re preparing to enter Fallujah circa 2004 against a well-entrenched enemy equipped with machine guns, mortars, and explosive vests. They also arrive in a mishmash of uniforms, hoodie sweatshirts, military gear, and masks, leaving everyone confused as to whether these are law enforcement officers or just some random dudes.

Where soldiers tailor their armament for the mission, ICE agents carry weapons and equipment inappropriate for simple search-and-seizure missions: ballistic helmets, bullet resistant plate carriers, magazine drop pouches on their legs, weapons loaded with a cornucopia of optics, silencers, and other attachments you wouldn’t catch your average infantryman dead with (the more weight on the weapon makes it less effective in a firefight).

Tactically, the way ICE performs its missions has little to do with “enemy” posture or the mission. One, there is no “enemy:” There are persons who may or may not have violated civil law. These people have not declared an intent to resist violently and with deadly force. Yet ICE shows up with maximum force and intimidation—often roping in people on the sidelines and increasing the media impact of their actions.

Generally, ICE agents move with zero military sense. They bunch up and cluster around their target or in doorways; in a combat zone, soldiers clustering up like this could be annihilated by a single grenade or burst from an automatic weapon. It also demonstrates that ICE agents often have very little clue what their mission is. Soldiers are taught to disperse and always move with a head on a swivel for situational awareness. As a soldier, you are taught to point your weapon only at something you intend to shoot. ICE agents have brandished their weapons. Soldiers train to reserve deadly force for identified enemies and to preserve life where possible. ICE and federal agents have publicly killed two unarmed American citizens.

Multiple images show ICE agents “stacking” on a door, a formation used in close quarters combat. Rather than resembling any type of recognizable urban warfare formation, ICE agents’ tactics often seem to be modeled off what they’ve seen in movies or imbibed via TV shows or video games. Given that training for ICE officers has dropped down to about six a half weeks, TV and movies might be their biggest source of knowledge. It demonstrates that ICE agents aren’t moving with a tactical focus; they’re doing what they think will look cool and intimidating in photographs. [Continue reading…]