Customs and Border Protection – Douchebags of the Day

This organization and its leaders are no longer even trying to pretend to act lawfully, morally and with integrity. CBP Chief Carla Provost is trying to explain her way out of a racist private Facebook page she and her agents used to post denigrating names about immigrants. One of her deputies, Chief of Law Enforcement Operations for Customs and Border Protection Brian S. Hastings, is rivaling Trump for the number of lies.

“Sixty-two current and eight former Border Patrol employees are being investigated for their role in the “I’m 10-15” Facebook group, where agents questioned the authenticity of images of a migrant father and child dead in a river. They also posted crude and doctored images of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez purporting to perform a sex act on President Donald Trump.”¹

Turns out Provost was also a member of the group, but she never confirmed that until her Congressional Testimony this past week. As it turns out, she was in the group in order to see what her agents were saying about her. The sleaziness of that reason for being the group aside, she expects to believe that in looking through to see what her agents were saying about her, she never saw any of the other ugly, racist and hateful comments?

So, she was either OK with the comments until they became public, or she’s so disconnected, she didn’t bother with the other information being put on the page. Neither scenario is acceptable. Oh, and while she was busy checking up on herself, five children have died in CBP custody since December.

And then we get to Hastings. He too testified before Congress this week. One of the things he was asked about was the case of Erwin Galaicia, an 18-year-old native-born American Citizen who was detained by ICE for more than 20 days, despite having a driver’s license and his mother showing up with his birth certificate.²

In his testimony, Hastings excused his agency by claiming, “Throughout the process, and while he was with Border Patrol, he claimed to be a citizen of Mexico with no immigration documents to be in or remain in the U.S.” .² The problem is Hastings testimony contradicts a notice to appear in immigration court served to Galicia obtained by the Dallas Morning News in which the Department of Homeland Security accused him of falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen while in custody.³

It gets worse the more Hastings talks. It seems he couldn’t say whether a 3-year-old child might post a “criminal or national security threat.”⁴ We’ve got a Commander-in-Chief who is disclosing top-secret information to and conspiring with foreign enemies of our country, and this guy can’t figure out whether or not a 3-year-old is a national security threat. “Hastings repeatedly contradicted his boss, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, including on a key issue pending before the same court that brought family separation to an end.”⁵

During a lightning round of opening questions from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, the CBP official confessed what many had long suspected but that the administration has repeatedly denied against all evidence: The Trump administration intended for family separation to be permanent. Hastings could not explain in even the simplest terms how his officers had gone about removing children from their parents; he further admitted there was no “minimum time” for warning parents they were about to be separated from their children perhaps forever. The denouement came when Hastings confessed what the administration had long denied: that there was no intent ever to reunite the families when the policy was first implemented. ⁵

Nadler: After it was determined that the adult was being deported, was the child supposed to be returned to the parent before the deportation or the parent is suddenly in some foreign country and the child is here?

Hastings: It’s probably a better question for HHS.

Nadler: Who did the deportation?

Hastings: We would do the deportation.

Nadler: You would do the deportation while the child was in a different city in the United States.

Hastings: We don’t do the reunifications is my point, sir.

Nadler: So you would do the deportation before the reunification without any knowledge of whether the parents are being reunified?

Hastings: Yes.

Nadler: So, in other words, you’re kidnapping the child.

Hastings: We’re not kidnapping the child. We follow the guidelines that are out.

Nadler: Deporting a parent without their child is literal kidnapping.

Hastings contradicted his boss, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, on the key point of ongoing family separations. He testified that—per the court order—separations were continuing according to internal guidance that they only occur if a parent is a danger to a child, has committed a violent misdemeanor or felony, or has a communicable disease. After hearing these guidelines, Rep. Jamie Raskin asked if families were being separated because a parent is HIV-positive, as was reported earlier this month in Quartz.⁵

Hastings answered without hesitation:

Raskin: If a mother or father has HIV-positive status, is that alone enough to justify separation from a child?

Hastings: It is. It’s a communicable disease under the guidance.

So who’s lying here, Hasting or McAleenan. Doesn’t matter, it is unacceptable.

And then there is DHS and CBP as a whole. This week, the usage of “concentration camp” has been shown truer than ever, with the Department of Homeland Security watchdog sharing photos of inhumane overcrowding, described by one senior manager as “a ticking time bomb.” And a delegation of Congressional representatives — including Ocasio-Cortez — to the border reported the rampant physical and psychological abuse of detainees, including orders from guards to drink toilet water. ⁶

There are the 9,500 members of the Facebook group (including their Chief). CBP agent violence has long been pervasive. As Daniel Denvir recounted recently:

Complaints of abuse were so rampant in 1980 that two Hispanic agents were sent undercover, dressed as Mexican workers, to check out the San Clemente checkpoint on I-5. The result: the agents allegedly beat their undercover colleagues with a chair and flashlight — and were charged with beating others including a fifteen-year-old citizen.

Accounts like this have been corroborated by both former and current Border Patrol officers who have assailed a pervasive culture of cruelty. As one former CBP agent, Jenn Budd, put it, “cruelty is the point. This is taught in the academy and reinforced by management.” When Budd tried to report abusive behavior to CBP, she got run over by an agent in the parking lot.⁵

So, congratulations to Chief’s Provost and Hastings and all the thugs who work under them for embarrassing America, dehumanizing treatment, and just plain inhumanity…you get a Douchebag Award.

1. “Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Was In Secret, Racist Facebook Group,” HuffPost, AP, July 27, 2019.
2. ”Border patrol official testifies citizen who was detained for nearly a month didn’t say he was from US,” The Hill, Chris Mills Rodrigo, July 25, 2019.
3. “A Border Patrol chief testifies that Francisco Galicia never claimed U.S. citizenship, but document says otherwise,” Dallas Morning News, Obed Manuel, July 26, 2019.
4. “Top CBP Officer Testifies He’s Unsure if 3-Year-Old Is “a Criminal or a National Security Threat,” Slate, Jeremy Stahl, July 26, 2019.
5. Ibid
6. ”The Border Patrol is the American SS,” Jacobin, Aaron Freedman, July 5, 2019.