() Agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s elite tactical unit are among the federal officers who have been dispatched to Los Angeles as part of the Trump administration’s response to ongoing anti-ICE demonstrations and unrest.

Members of the unit, known within U.S. Customs and Border Protection as BORTAC, were sent to LA late last week, has learned.

These agents represent the special operations group within CBP, which is often called in to deal with emergent situations. But the role the group is serving in LA remains unknown, as officials from the agencies are remaining quiet on the unit’s participation.

In a social media post over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, wrote that BORTAC, which is based in his district, “has been worn hard” and that it is “important to let them catch their breath.”

The same unit was credited with the apprehension of Grant Hardin, the former Arkansas police chief who was convicted of murder and other charges and who was on the run for almost two weeks after escaping from prison.

Hardin was taken into custody on June 6, one day after the BORTAC unit, headquartered in El Paso, Texas, was assigned to assist with the search, reported last week.

Gonzales’ spokesperson told on Tuesday that the congressman was noting the unit is being called on frequently and was not inferring that the unit should not have been activated to Los Angeles.

Spokespersons from CBP and U.S. Border Patrol did not respond to multiple requests for comment from this week on what role BORTAC agents are serving in Los Angeles.

BORTAC agents are part of a larger federal response to Los Angeles, where more than 4,100 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines have been deployed by Trump and members of his administration at a cost of an estimated $134 million, Pentagon officials announced on Tuesday.

Border Patrol part of ICE ‘reinforcements’

California officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have criticized Trump’s deployment of troops to the scene. Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are seeking a court order to halt the Trump administration’s use of U.S. military troops and “federalizing” the California National Guard to patrol Los Angeles.

In a post on X, Newsom accused Trump of acting like a tyrant and turning the military against American citizens.

Media reports, citing the president of the National Border Patrol Council, reported that further Border Patrol units from California and Arizona are likely to be sent to Los Angeles to assist in responding to the unrest and protests.

“ICE was doing the job. They requested reinforcements, so obviously, Border Patrol is going to send people up there,” the union president, Manny Bayon, told the Epoch Times.

“There are ATF, FBI, and DEA units up there, too. They’re BORTAC units. They’re also called SOD units, Special Operations Deployment.”

BORTAC returns to Los Angeles

This isn’t the first time that BORTAC has been activated to respond to unrest in Los Angeles. BORTAC was also sent to Los Angeles in 1992 when riots broke out around the city following the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles Police Department officers.

CBP officials said that BORTAC’s role in 1992 was to assist local police in handling riots that took place after King was beaten.

Unlike the recent capture of Hardin, CBP officials have not formally announced the deployment of the special operations group that is often described as a SWAT team to join the federal response to the unrest taking place in Los Angeles. Last week, Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez stated that the unit’s “unique capabilities and training” make BORTAC agents “well-suited” for the demands of the mission to find Hardin.

Border Patrol and CBP officials were criticized after BORTAC was sent to Portland in 2020 to assist with riots and demonstrations that took place over immigration enforcement crackdowns in sanctuary cities across the United States.

Critics of the operation insisted that, despite being trained in similar ways to U.S. special forces units, BORTAC agents had not received specific training for operations in urban environments.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The New York Times in 2020 that the training received by the elite unit of the Border Patrol “aligned with their appropriate training” and that agents received additional training for their deployment in the city.”

Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva expressed his opposition to Trump’s 2020 deployment of BORTAC to sanctuary cities and said in a statement released at the time that the federal government should not be allowed to “weaponize our immigration system for partisan politics.”

‘s Ali Bradley contributed reporting to this story.