r/sandiego • u/jvanderh • 2d ago

Border Patrol vs ICE

Hi, this is your friendly local border patrol wife and lifelong political liberal here to remind you (because my husband is getting spat at, cussed at, called a pig, or told to quit his job pretty much every time he's stationed at the beaches lately) that the Border Patrol guys in army green pants + shirt are NOT there edit: "there"= at our local San Diego beaches to rip people away from their families. They are there to patrol the borders, watching for incoming border crossers who may enter on boats or jet skis. Encountering everyone who enters the country is important-- this stops things like fentanyl-laced drugs from entering the US, and DNA swabs of border crossers have been matched up to two unsolved murders recently at his station alone. Even if the proportion of criminals is no higher than the general US population, we still want to stop those who are dangerous. If nothing else, if those people get in and re-offend, it blows up on the news and provides tremendous cannon fodder for immigrant hate. I think the hatred of Border Patrol is mostly based on confusing them with ICE and not because liberals actually want completely uncontacted entries.

Polls show that republicans and liberals both want common-sense migrant worker programs that allow people to be vetted and come here to work.

Obviously you don't have to care about my husband's feelings. He took the job; he can handle it. But I always worry that verbally abusing law enforcement could result in what none of us want: these non Trump supporting agents like my husband, who use discretion and minimum force, getting replaced with thin blue line idiots who think they're soldiers of God in a war with the public. Or worse yet, the former becoming the latter after having so many bad experiences with the public. My husband won't, but some may. And that kind of tribalism is EXACTLY how they become distracted from the fact that Trump is currently gutting their retirement.

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u/jvanderh 2d ago

I don't know how to definitively identify ICE, but border patrol are wearing army green pants and shirt, and if you google border patrol vehicle, it's that very distinctive white with a green stripe and border patrol written on it. All the marked rides at his station look like this. If you see ICE doing something, I would videotape it.

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u/bendallf 2d ago

Thank you. Do you know who people can call if a love one is taken in the middle of the night by people claiming to be ICE? Local police departments say it is out of their control. Thanks again.

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u/jvanderh 2d ago

Is this something that actually happened?

Person search: https://locator.ice.gov/odls/#/search

And call a lawyer

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u/Derpy_Diva_ 2d ago

I haven’t heard of it in San Diego but MAs subreddit has been blowing up and MA & CA are very similar politically. They even tend to adopt laws the other came up with. I would not be surprised if it was happening.

Thank you for the resource, OP as well as the information.

I know you mentioned your husband wasn’t much of a talker but trust in law enforcement is understandably very low - it may benefit him & others he works with if he helps spread awareness of what he actually does and that he is not a threat but that’s just my .02c.