A former ICE officer said violent opposition to federal immigration operations involved organized actors, cartel-linked suspects and tactics that combat veterans compared to conditions in Afghanistan.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer is warning that federal agents confronting violent resistance to immigration enforcement have faced what he described as a coordinated domestic insurgency rather than an ordinary law enforcement challenge.
In a new interview with Border Hawk, the former officer said federal authorities have adopted military-style tactics during the past 18 months as they responded to riots, organized criminal activity and efforts to obstruct the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
“We were not dealing with a law enforcement operation. We were dealing with a domestic counterinsurgency operation. That is what was happening in the United States. You had a coordinated, well-funded insurgent movement happen on American soil. ICE and Border Patrol were the tip of the spear attempting to crush that insurgency,” the officer said.
“We started doing things that had never been done before from an immigration enforcement perspective and a law enforcement perspective.”
The officer pointed to the violent unrest that erupted in Southern California during the summer of 2025, describing it as the opening stage of a prolonged struggle involving domestic organizations, foreign actors, criminal gangs and cartels opposed to federal deportation efforts.
He said veterans who had served in overseas conflicts were among the first to recognize similarities between those operations and the conditions federal immigration officers were encountering inside the United States.
“A lot of veterans of the Iran and Afghanistan wars, more so than anybody else, recognized what we were dealing with,” the officer said.
“I’ll never forget, when I was in Minneapolis, I was talking with an average ICE officer, and he said, ‘This is basically just Afghanistan with fewer bombs.’”
According to the officer, many people arrested during immigration-related riots were found to have connections to international cartels. He alleged that those individuals had previously been permitted to remain in the United States and conduct criminal operations without meaningful interference during the Biden administration.
“The coordinating body of a lot of these riots in these different neighborhoods was the cartel,” he stated.
The officer described vehicles being purchased and deliberately used as weapons against federal agents. He said older cars and sport utility vehicles were marked to indicate an affiliation with a gang or cartel before being driven at high speed into ICE or Border Patrol vehicles.
“These gangs were buying cars, old junkers, and would put a sticker on the car to designate it as a cartel or gang car. They would take that car and drive it full speed and smash it into the first Border Patrol or ICE vehicle that they could find. They essentially were using guided missiles in the form of an SUV against law enforcement, and that was financed by drug cartels.”
A Federation for American Immigration Reform investigation into the Southern California unrest concluded that the violence “was not a spontaneous grassroots response, but a premeditated operation orchestrated by anti-borders activists and foreign actors.”
The former officer said federal authorities relied on advanced surveillance capabilities, investigative tools and operational strategies to identify and apprehend criminal suspects and illegal immigrants during similar disturbances around the country.
He argued that those same capabilities could be expanded to support a large-scale deportation effort, provided Congress and elected officials supplied sufficient legal, financial and political backing.
“We have the capability to do it,” he asserted.
The officer also said the federal government could adopt policies intended to encourage illegal immigrants to depart the United States voluntarily, reducing the number of people agents would need to locate and remove through enforcement operations.
“There are [also] things that Congress and the Administration can do to encourage people to leave on their own… but that political will just clearly does not exist in this Congress.”
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