Two agents involved in the shooting deaths of US citizens in Minneapolis are reportedly part of highly militarized DHS units whose extreme tactics are generally reserved for war zones. An officer with a Department of Homeland Security Special Response Team stands against a protester in Portland, Oregon. As Minneapolis continues to reel from the fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents on the morning of January 24, the international spotlight is firmly fixed on the heavily armed and masked operatives who have spearheaded the Trump administration's violent immigration sweeps. At the heart of the deployment in Minnesota, as well as the chaotic clashes with communities in Southern California and Illinois, are hundreds of agents that operate within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection: ICE's two Special Response Teams (SRT), CBP's one SRT, and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). These paramilitary tactical units behave not like local police, but instead like special forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other far-flung battlefields from the Forever Wars of the past quarter century.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. An unmanned Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan in 2010. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . MQ-9 Predator drones were deployed over Los Angeles to monitor anti-ICE protests in June.

Vice President Harris pledges a new path forward, invokes Jan. 6 and reminds supporters that America knows what kind of leader former President Trump is in speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. Vice President Kamala Harris, who has indicated that she would be willing to undergo a cognitive test, has also suggested that under a Harris administration, the U.S. would swiftly remove individuals who illegally enter the country, "prosecute the cartels," and provide Border Patrol with needed support. "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell confronted Harris about former President Donald Trump's claim that the vice president is "a very low-IQ person" who should undergo a test. "Would you take a cognitive test?" O'Donnell asked. "Sure," Harris responded, adding, "I would challenge him to take the same one." She claimed that Trump "is increasingly unstable and unhinged."

Former National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd on border agents threatening to leave if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election and explains agents' frustrations with the Biden-Harris administration. The Border Patrol is facing a large-scale outage of security cameras at the southern border with a memo reportedly warning it is having "significant impacts" on operations in apprehending migrants, although officials note there are other layers of security in place as well. NBC News reported that an October memo said nearly one-third of cameras, roughly 150 of 500 cameras on surveillance towers, were out due to technical issues. "The nationwide issue is having significant impacts on [Border Patrol] operations," the memo said. The Remote Video Surveillance Systems are nearly 15 years old and are used to monitor areas of the border without the need for regular on the ground patrols.

Fox News Digital was on the ground in El Paso Sector as Border Patrol agents caught illegal immigrants entering the U.S., including one group that cut into a border fence. SUNLAND PARK, N.M. -- As Border Patrol agents work to combat the movement of illegal immigrants across the southern border in the El Paso Sector, they say a multi-layered enforcement system that has been expanded in recent years and combines the use of barriers with technology and other forms of enforcement has helped thwart cartel smuggling operations and nab illegal immigrants moving into the U.S. Overshadowing the border in Sunland Park, New Mexico, is miles of border wall. Some of it is border fence built during the Obama administration, while other parts consist of Trump-era bollard wall. Fox News Digital was on the ground when agents nabbed illegal immigrants just feet from the fence they had cut a hole through. Even though they got through, it gave agents time to apprehend them.

Texas DPS said the smuggler was smuggling two illegal immigrants from Mexico. Texas authorities announced Thursday that they have arrested a confirmed MS-13 gang member with a lengthy rap sheet, whose name is on an international watchlist, after he attempted to escape deeper into the U.S. in a grain hauler on a train. Delmar Sanchez Zuniga is a previously deported Honduran national with a lengthy rap sheet, authorities said. Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement on Thursday that he is a confirmed MS-13 gang member on the Transnational Criminal Organization Watchlist. The agency said that Texas Rangers, using drone technology, observed a number of illegal immigrants attempting to board a train in Maverick County on June 3.

AUSTIN, Texas – Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican who represents a district in Texas that spans more than 800 miles along the border, warned that the surge of migrants crossing into the US illegally won't stop until Congress takes action. Tomorrow, it's your city, whether that's Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Florida," Gonzales told Fox News Digital on Saturday. There have been more than two million migrant encounters this fiscal year, including more than 203,000 just last month. House Republicans unveiled their "Commitment to America" agenda this week, which calls for ending catch-and-release loopholes, requiring proof of legal status for a job, and increasing funding for infrastructure and advanced technology at the border. Autonomous surveillance towers are a key piece of technology that Congress should fund for Border Patrol, Gonzales said. The towers, which can be erected in just a few hours and reach 33 feet in height, scan the surrounding area and use artificial intelligence to detect both migrants and the human smugglers who traffic them. "Every border sector is asking for more of these," Gonzales said. "What you don't hear too much about – the'gotaways' – these are people that we know entered the country illegally, but we don't know where they went.

Rep. August Pfluger joins'Fox & Friends First' and calls out Biden's handling of border crisis The feds have turned to cutting-edge cameras developed by a virtual reality wunderkind to help them monitor the southern border -- by creating an invisible border wall. The high-tech watch poles known as Autonomous Surveillance Towers are powered by solar energy and use artificial intelligence to detect movement along a two-mile radius, sending the information in real-time to agents patrolling the area. And they're now being installed at different points along the nearly 2,000 miles of the US-Mexico border. "The ASTs are in remote locations that are difficult to reach," Border Patrol agent Joel Freeland recently told The Post. "They operate 24-hours a day and are environmentally friendly because they rely entirely on solar power." The ASTs were developed by Palmer Luckey, the 28-year-old founder and designer of Oculus VR and Oculus Rift.

Passengers embark on the U.S. side of the last hand-pulled ferry at Los Ebanos, Texas on the Mexico-U.S. border in 2008. LOS EBANOS, Texas -- All along the winding Rio Grande, the people who live in this bustling, fertile region where the U.S. border meets the Gulf of Mexico never quite understood how Donald Trump's great wall could ever be much more than campaign rhetoric. Erecting a concrete barrier across the entire 1,954-mile frontier with Mexico, they know, collides head-on with multiple realities: the geology of the river valley, fierce local resistance and the immense cost. An electronically fortified "virtual wall" with surveillance technology that includes night-and-day video cameras, tethered observation balloons and high-flying drones makes a lot more sense to people here. If a 30- to 40-foot concrete wall is a panacea for illegal immigration, as Trump insisted during the campaign, the locals are not convinced.