BORTAC tactical expertise
BORTAC was a little known unit until April 2000, when national and international media coverage vaulted them into the limelight for executing the raid that returned Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba. Elian was the six-year-old Cuban boy found floating in an inner tube after the boat carrying him and a group of Cubans attempting illegal entry into the United States capsized, drowning his mother and nine other passengers. Elian survived, and on Thanksgiving Day in 1999, he was rescued by fishermen and brought to Miami, where his Cuban-American relatives took him in. Elian became a rallying point for Florida's large and politically powerful anti-Castro Cuban community. Amidst a storm of controversy, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) reinforced by Attorney General Janet Reno, determined that the boy should be returned to his father in Cuba.

INS tasked BORTAC with extracting Elian from the Miami house that had served as his temporary home without provoking an incident that would result in violence. The house was surrounded day and night with emotional and militant crowds. On April 22, 2000, moving swiftly in the predawn light, the BORTAC team arrived. Protesters swarmed the yard throwing rocks and bottles at the team, while those inside the house made makeshift barricades, piling sofas and furniture against the door. The situation was precarious; but the BORTAC team got Elian out. With almost clinical precision, they swooped in, scooped him up, and spirited him safely to the arms of his father. Due to the skill and discipline of the BORTAC team members nobody was injured.

While disagreements on the politics and the necessity of the raid abound, even the sharpest critics agree on one thing-the maneuver was handled perfectly. Tactical experts agree with Tom Cash, former special agent in charge of the Miami office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who said, ''I've been in charge of literally thousands of these types of raids, on search warrants, and I'm telling you it was textbook." 1
1 Published Monday, May 1, 2000, in the Miami Herald

Born of the 60s
The first BORTAC basic course graduated from training in 1984. Border Patrol Senior Associate Chief Ronald S. Colburn, was a graduate of the first BORTAC class and one of the founding and charter members of the unit. Colburn recounts that during the early 1960s race riots, aircraft hijackings, and security threats from Cuba were emerging with alarming regularity. These situations demanded a mobile, tactical response capability composed of personnel trained in special weapons and tactics or SWAT teams. Colburn and a number of similar-thinking colleagues (such as Bill Dickman, Tom Walters, and Jim Grasky) put their heads together, and the result was BORTAC. Modeled after and using training techniques like the FBI Hostage Rescue Teams and the Special Operations Group of the U.S. Marshals Service, BORTAC was first deployed to assist with uprisings at INS detention centers.

Testing the physical and mental mettle
Potential BORTAC members volunteer and undergo rigorous preliminary physical fitness tests. Those that pass get interviewed and screened for intangible qualities like service orientation, selflessness, and team spirit. After the interviews, a few are selected to attend the BORTAC basic training. And the easy part is behind them.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of BORTAC training officers, El Paso, Tex.

BORTAC training class at the end of a grueling six mile hike carrying 38 pound rucksacks.

"Basic" is a misnomer for the physically grueling and mentally challenging BORTAC training conducted at Biggs Army Air Field in El Paso, Tex. The group trains as a team, learning survivalist techniques, enduring pain, sleep deprivation, and bone-crushing fatigue. Sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, target shooting, 45 minutes of treading water and a timed 6 mile hike with a 38 pound rucksack are part of the physical demands. Training runs 24/7 for around two to three weeks. The length of the course is non-specific and is part of the training strategy-not knowing how much longer there is to go, having to dole out strings of energy but holding some in reserve, pacing, all of this taxes the candidate's psyche. Most of us can do "just three more," of anything, but how many can you do if you don't know how many are left to do? Some break under the dual mental and physical strain. In the last BORTAC class, 38 started the training but only seven graduated.

On foreign soil
Known as a multi-faceted national response team, BORTAC missions run the gamut from training and advisory work to military type enforcement operations. BORTAC teams respond to needs all around the country, but they are also deployed internationally. Law enforcement organizations in Russia, Africa, Eastern Europe South America, and the Middle East have all received training from BORTAC. Subjects range from tactical interdiction techniques (ambushes) and conflict resolution (counter-sniper) to the BORTAC specialty-tracking and enforcement operations in rural settings. Three years ago they helped Honduras plan, organize, and put into operation an organization with border patrol responsibilities, and a team returned this year to evaluate their progress.

Entrenched behind bunkers and armed with high capacity firepower, members of the drug cartels engage BORTAC teams in armed confrontation, protecting their product, and their profits. In this "search and destroy" environment, teams of agents locate and wipe out narcotics laboratories, seize aircraft, and demolish remote airfields used to transport narcotics. Senior Associate Chief Colburn described his work in Bolivia as guerilla-style military operations reminiscent of Viet Nam. Photos in his office document some of his exploits-4 kilos of cocaine wrapped in an American flag photographed with a background of graffiti reading "Viva la coca. Fuera Yankis" (Long live cocaine. Yankees out.) BORTAC teams aren't looking for a fight but they don't shy away from one either. An unspoken motto is, "Get in, do the job, and get out with as little resistance as possible." Foreign enforcement roles are some of the most dangerous and have been frequently South American and Central American operations in support of the Drug Enforcement Administration's narcotics interdiction efforts.

On the home front
In keeping with the "strategic" part of their name, BORTAC is deployed for emergency situations such as natural disasters. In September 1995, Hurricane Marilyn pummeled the U.S. Virgin Islands. BORTAC team members were called in and deputized as marshals to restore order and deal with the looting that the hurricane left in its wake.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of BORTAC training officers, El Paso, Tex.

BORTAC team member demonstrates inverted rappel which preserves an agent's field of vision when entering dangerous or unknown locales.

But it's in the desert where BORTAC teams are really in their element. Agents hide in the desert brush and wait for illegal immigrants or drug smugglers to sneak down centuries old secret trails used by Spanish gold prospectors and Indian raiding parties. In order to "lay in" a covert operation like this a group of agents hike into a predetermined remote site and set up a camp as an operating base. Patrols then run out of the camp into increasingly remote areas. They use generations old tracking techniques and state-of-the-art night vision goggles to watch and wait hoping to catch smugglers off guard. During these covert maneuvers agents work 12-hour shifts, so that 24/7 someone is on lookout for movement on the desert floor.

Laying in is not the only tactic. Once a group of aliens has been spotted, a team may decide to "manage" the group's movements. Like a safari hunter directing prey using strategic noise, agents coax groups to move in a certain direction, "leading" them so they unwittingly head towards agents waiting to apprehend them. On one occasion, agents strategically parked a camouflaged Border Patrol vehicle at a crossroads causing the smuggler and his group to use a second trail where they were easily intercepted.

Starting in March 2004, BORTAC teams returned to the Tucson area for the Arizona Border Control Initiative. Last year, while deployed to this area, they apprehended 1,500 illegal immigrants and drug smugglers during the first week, but they also saved the lives of immigrants who underestimated the rigor of the desert. BORTAC unit commander Kevin Oaks says, "Our forte is once we leave the pavement." And so the team knows the drill; with speed and precision they set up rows of cots in a temporary barracks with a larger tent that will serve as a "lounge" and engage the mind set necessary for the tedium and concentration required of these missions.

BORTAC's agility and ability to function for long periods of time in inhospitable areas make it the ideal force for intensive border security and safety initiatives. As CBP moves to counter new and ominous threats to our country both at our borders and abroad, BORTAC is the trump card that can be played in the fight against terrorism in all of its forms.