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almost half of @cbp officers are a part of this. Even if only 10 percent more are down with it, that means 60% of agents are in fact represented by this ugly, racist shit. And the other 40% knows goddamn well what they’re about, so they’re dirty too
It’s not like these guys are afraid to show their colors. EVERY reporter, lawyer, and human rights activist working on the border has stories of the ugly, violent behavior of @cbp agents. Yes, there’s probably some good ones. But I’ve only ever met good ones who left
But most of them either are, or are going along, no matter how queasy it makes them. Partly that’s a result of the Green Line which makes speaking up as a @cbp agent dangerous. But it’s also a direct result of DECADES of immigration policies that favor brutality over compassion
In that sense, this isn’t a partisan issue. Clinton began a deterrence based approach to immigration explicitly built on making an attempt to come to the US so horrible, you’d go home and dissuade others.
Bush and Obama eagerly followed this doctrine, despite clear evidence it didn’t work. This in turn led to more agents being thrown at the border and each time a reduction in the qualifications to be a @cbp agent, and ever increasing militarization of the force
By the Obama era, @cbp agents were murdering teenagers walking home IN MEXICO knowing they’d face no repercussions. This is not hyperbole. It is fact amp.azcentral.com/amp/408088001
The officers got off. Meanwhile inside the US, @cbp agents who were caught working for the cartels would end up not in jail, but patrolling the border, where in one case an agent shot a migrant in the back buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/johnst…
There are many, many more examples of brutality, from shootings to migrants being kept in so-called “icebox” cells to @cbp agents knifing water jugs in the desert left by @NoMoreDeaths and other humanitarians for migrants.
So now, an agency that has essentially been told it’s ok to commit human rights abuses and even murder finds itself under the control of an administration run by people who explicitly hate migrants and asylum seekers and who seem to revel in expressions of cruelty
And so @cbp and it’s personnel have responded accordingly, taking the abuse to ever increasing new heights of cruelty.
As horrifying as it sounds, the concentration camps, the deaths of children in @cbp custody, the torture and abuse we’re seeing now, is simply a symptom. The disease is much larger and far deeper. THAT is the reality we must confront.
lord knows I don’t know the solution. There are plenty of smarter people who can have thoughtful, heated fights over that. But what I do know after years covering the border is that if we don’t address the symptoms AND the cause, human suffering will continue.
I say this because the shocking images and stories coming from the border will likely lead to bandaids being proffered by thevpowers that be. And those are needed, and just and right.
But unless a fundamental change in @cbp and our approach to immigration that respects the humanity and dignity of desperate, terrorized people is undertaken, the moral rot will remain.
