In the last 4 years, many officials from Donald Trump’s first administration have denounced his actions of insurrection, his hateful rhetoric, his affection for America’s enemies, his threats of retribution. Unfortunately, many does not mean all.
Leaders of Trump’s first Department of Homeland Security , along with representatives of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world, have spent the last four years touring the country and spreading lies and disinformation about border security. Mark Morgan, Chad Wolf, Rodney Scott, Tom Homan, Derek Maltz, Victor Avila and others took every opportunity to tell anyone who would listen that the border was open when it was not and that Trump’s immigration policies of Migration Protection Protocols and Title 42 that shut down the legal asylum system were not causing the high numbers of illegal crossings even though they were the cause.
If these men were honest about national security, if they followed their oath to the Constitution, then they would admit that not processing asylum seekers for four years under these Trump policies created a backlog of people who according to US law are required to have immigration hearings. Biden becoming president in 2021 had nothing to do with more people crossing illegally; continuation of Trump’s failed policies did as the graph above clearly demonstrates.
Trump inherited the Obama policies which, for better or worse, provided years of the lowest illegal crossings when comparing the government’s data. The increase in illegal crossings started in December 2018 with his Migration Protection Protocols, then decreased for a bit because of Covid 19 only to go right back up in March 2020 when Title 42 was enacted and shut down all legal avenues. The large illegal crossings only slowed once Biden ended Trump’s policy and people could begin to apply legally.
These first Trump administration officials know these statistics. They all have years of experience on the southern border. They know that if we shut down legal avenues with which people can present themselves to be inspected, desperate people will turn right around and cross illegally. They know that metering at the ports, meaning severely restricting those who can apply legally, causes people to cross illegally thus reducing the government’s ability to inspect.
This all should make you question why these men proclaiming to care about national security and wanting to stop people from illegally crossing and overwhelming Border Patrol agents would continually argue for policies that directly contribute to illegal crossings.
Donald Trump is a convicted felon; 34 times over. He has been judged liable in a civil trial for sexual abuse. Until recently, he was under indictment for stealing secret government documents even though it is likely he shared some US intelligence with our enemies. Trump stated unequivocally that if reelected, he would hunt down and throw all his enemies in prison.
This should make you question why men who have sworn an oath to the Constitution would not waiver in their support for a man who is literally everything these law enforcement officials claim to protect us from; a thief, a sexual predator, an agent working against the US government, a man threatening to end the very document they swore an oath to protect.
Additionally, Trump claimed if reelected he would conduct the largest mass deportation in US history. These raids will be carried out by the three immigration enforcement agencies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the US Border Patrol, as well as by the local and state law enforcement agencies that they now own through federal grants and national security joint task forces. Trump’s desire to use National Guard and US military would expand the raids, require large concentrations of suspected undocumented people being held in camps, and most certainly will create traumatic human rights abuses.
These men know that there is no such thing as mass deportations without abuse and death.
Trump’s DHS officials promise to reinstitute these policies that shuttered the asylum system. They promise to bring mass deportations. None of this should surprise anyone because these are the men who designed child separation, who built the “chicken coop” cages Border Patrol chiefs often use to hold asylum seeking families in the baking Arizona desert, who let 8 children die in their custody, who ordered their agents to throw pepper balls and tear gas at women and children seeking asylum as they stood on Mexican soil…
This is a discussion that our congressional leaders and press are unwilling to have: Is it acceptable for law enforcement officials and especially the Border Patrol union to use their positions as leaders in their agencies to stump for a candidate that has called for suspending the US Constitution, a document these officials have all sworn an oath to?
If these officials are willing to suspend the Constitution as Donald Trump wishes, then they are saying they are willing to violate their oaths and can no longer be trusted to enforce the laws of the US. If we wish to have a government by the people, for the people, accountability for those supporting an insurrection leader was and should still be a priority.