Get out your tiny violin for the disgruntled and disaffected ICE agents who think Donald Trump and ICE Barbie Kristi Noem are putting them in untenable positions.
The New York Times spoke to more than 20 current and former immigration officials for an article titled, “A Crisis of Confidence for ICE and Border Patrol as Clashes Escalate.”
Former immigration officer Oscar Hagelsieb, a Trump supporter who spent nearly 25 years on the job and remains proud of his work, was a chief source for The Times. He was described as feeling “anger and despair at how the Trump administration was deploying his former agency.”
“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” Mr. Hagelsieb reportedly said. “It’s completely unfair to the agents who have been put in this position. … They’re causing chaos, and unfortunately it’s costing lives.”
More via The Times:
Mr. Hagelsieb’s comments reflect a growing sense of fear, frustration and disillusionment among some current and former immigration officials at the department, which is leading Mr. Trump’s push to arrest and deport millions of people. In interviews with The New York Times, more than 20 of them expressed anxieties that the administration was sending federal agents into situations in Minneapolis and other major cities that were increasingly dangerous both for them and civilians they encountered. They said that long hours, arrest quotas and public vitriol were taking a significant toll on morale.
It's hard to feel sympathy for folks who signed up to be Gestapo-like agents but they do have a point that at least some of the blame lies with President “Peace Prize” Trump and the goons he put in charge to execute Shadow President Stephen Miller’s plan for ethnic cleansing.
Besides criticizing the incendiary, dishonest blame-the-victim rhetoric that Noem, Trump and others in the administration spewed in the immediate aftermath of the weekend murder of Alex Pretti by DHS agents, many told The Times that Trump’s campaign is counterproductive, in large part because they are not properly trained for what they are tasked to do. In previous administrations, The Times said, ICE arrests were cautiously planned in advance. “But the administration’s demand for as many as 3,000 arrests per day has significantly reduced the time available for that kind of careful preparation.”
On top of that, DHS agents have been reassigned from cases involving serious crimes like drug smuggling and terrorism. “’It’s like a local police department pulling a homicide investigator to conduct an operation against jaywalkers,' Mr. Hagelsieb said.”
All the more reason for Democrats to refuse to fund ICE in the upcoming funding bill.
