Trump Administers New Training Requirement for CPB Officers Raises Alarms

As the federal government cracks down on protests in Minnesota, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has told its officials they must undergo more crowd control training, opening the door to the use of chemical munitions against protesters, according to a memo obtained by News themezone.

CBP, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for safeguarding the country’s borders and ports of entry, but has taken a leading role in the crackdown in Minneapolis.

Under the plan, many current CBP employees would need to obtain higher certification in what is known as “mobile field force training,” according to the memo. The certification requires three days of training on how to handle the kind of civil unrest that is not common at ports or borders but is quickly becoming a staple of the White House’s urban immigration operations.

Advanced training is a prerequisite for using pepper balls and tear gas canisters, rather than just pepper spray, as long as officers obtain additional certifications.

Leadership hopes its field offices will conduct the training as quickly as possible so that CBP employees can be deployed to more volatile situations alongside other law enforcement agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The change comes as the city of Minneapolis is filled with anger following the murder of Rene Buenoa 37-year-old mother of three, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week. The Trump administration has reclaimed Well “arm yourself”[d]” his car and that the officer, Jonathan Ross, acted in self-defense, although video of the meeting shows Good pulling the vehicle away from Ross as he opens fire.

Good’s death, along with virality videos of federal agents pulling people out of their cars to arrest them, sparked dozens of protests in Minneapolis and other cities across the country. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of additional ICE and CBP agents to the Twin Cities in recent days, and the president has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Law and sending the US military to Minnesota to quell the protests.

Gil Kerlikowske, who led CBP under former President Barack Obama, told News themezone that the new training requirement signals that those at the agency “have no intention of backing down” on their deportation campaign and want “a little bit better skill set” when dealing with crowds.

“There has to be a clear recognition that they are not fully trained,” he said. “This kind of thing (just walking through a Home Depot lot or something) is not what they do. It’s been pretty clear in the shootings inside the vehicles, the standing in front of the vehicles… throwing tear gas, shooting people with pepper balls, hitting people.”

The Trump administration has faced harsh criticism for the aggressiveness with which agents have handled anti-ICE protests. In November, a federal judge issued an injunction restricting federal agents’ crowd control methods, finding that their use of force during the Chicago protests violated people’s constitutional rights and “shocked.”[ed] conscience.”

AP Photo/Jenny Kane

While CBP’s newest recruits have been required to take a more advanced course in crowd control, many of those already with the agency only have a lower certification. Now everyone would be certified to handle demonstrations and larger emergencies, even supervisors who have been working primarily behind desks.

DHS is a sprawling department with different responsibilities and sub-agencies. Immigration enforcement in the interior of the country has historically been the purview of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but CBP personnel, including the U.S. Border Patrol, have been enlisted in large numbers to push for deportations for the Trump administration.

Like News themezone reported Last year, about 2,000 CBP and Border Patrol agents were diverted from their typical duties at U.S. ports and borders to help ICE arrest undocumented immigrants, potentially harming efforts to combat drug smuggling and human trafficking.

It is now common to see CBP and Border Patrol alongside ICE on the streets of Minneapolis and other cities. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the rush of federal agents following Good’s shooting was “causing chaos” and urged residents to remain calm and demonstrate peacefully.

“There are still many things we don’t know at this time,” Frey saying Wednesday night. “But what I can tell you for sure is that this is not sustainable. It is an impossible situation that our city is currently in.”

This would not be the first time Trump has turned to CBP to help quell protests. In the summer of 2020, during his first presidency, the administration deployed CBP personnel to handle racial justice protests in several cities following the killing of George Floyd.

According public records obtained by the American Immigration Council, an agency official expressed concern at the time about putting officers in “direct contact” with the public in that way.

“[T]”They do not have the proper training or equipment for crowd control,” the official wrote.