The most recent stories breaking about the conditions at immigration detention camps and the behavior of Customs and Border Patrol officers is disturbing in a way that is giving me flashbacks to Abu Ghraib.
The seriousness of the allegations regarding detainee treatment and CBP behavior cannot be overstated. This is the bleeding edge of the creeping authoritarianism that many of us have feared. These detainees are the canaries in the coal mine of our liberal democracy. The swaggering, insolent manner in which members of Congress who seek to observe these camps is particularly alarming.
It seems clear that a pervasive culture of hatred and contempt for Latin Americans seeking to gain entrance into our country has taken root in the CBP and ICE. The National Border Patrol Council, a union that, in 2016, represented 16,500 border patrol agents, endorsed Donald Trump on March 30, 2016, during the Republican primary race.
Here is a January 2018 video thank you card from Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, labeled: Making America Confident Again, in which he sings the praises of Donald Trump for finally “taking the handcuffs off” of border patrol agents:
Our Border Patrol purports to be strongly pro-enforcement of our laws rather than anti-immigrant, yet they routinely flout our laws, pursuant to treaty, concerning the handling of claims for asylum and the treatment of detainees, and they disrespect our elected officials who attempt to conduct oversight.
The House Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, needs to begin aggressively investigating the situation at the border. I want to see public hearings where individual border patrol agents who posted on this FaceBook page that’s been widely reported on are subpoenaed to testify in public hearings. I want individual detainees, including children, subpoenaed to testify in public hearings. What I’d really like to see is the a strong resolution by the house giving full authority to a group of representatives to access all detention facilities, interview all detainees, and document, including with video recordings and photographs the conditions at the border.
In 2017, Democrats lacked real power or authority to do much about border conditions. Now they have real muscle. It’s past time to start flexing it.