A US Coast Guard holds a rifle while patrolling the Rio Grande on an airboat as part of Operation River Wall.
Photographer: Brenda Bazan/Bloomberg
Border Patrol Swarms Charlotte as Trump Redeploys Federal Forces
The moves come amid signs of impatience inside the Trump administration.
As President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort falls short of its lofty targets, his administration is redeploying federal forces in ways rarely seen before, expanding the military’s role at the southern border and sending heavily armed agents deep into US cities.
Coast Guard gunboats that usually ply coastal waters now patrol the Rio Grande in Texas; Border Patrol agents yanked from the frontier are arresting immigrants in Chicago and now Charlotte, North Carolina, where officials reported dozens of apprehensions over the weekend; and Naval ships are being rerouted to the Caribbean to blow up suspected drug-smuggling boats and boost pressure on Venezuela, one of the biggest sources of migrants to the US over the past few years.