'These are his people': inside the elite border patrol unit Trump sent to Portland

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/trump-border-patrol-troops-portland-bortac

n January 2011, James Tomsheck, then a top internal affairs investigator inside US Customs and Border Protection, attended a meeting of about 100 senior CBP leaders in a hotel in Irvington, Virginia.

Amid the sanitized splendor of the hotel ballroom, he vividly recalls hearing the nation’s then highest-ranking border patrol agent, David Aguilar, laying out his vision for the future. Border patrol, the former CBP deputy commissioner said, was to become the “marine corps of the US federal law enforcement community”.

Another leading CBP figure remarked that border agents were not required to adhere to the same constitutional restraints on the use of force as other law enforcers. “We are not cops,” he said.

Fast forward to this month, when Tomsheck absorbed with mounting foreboding the images of federal officers – led by border patrol agents – wielding teargas and flash bangs against protesters in Portland, Oregon.

*snip*

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[Dan]

2. I hope that they disband the CBP and disqualify them

From working within any agency of the Federal Government. They have demonstrated their willingness to violate the Constitution and one has to wonder how far will they go....

[underpants]

3. 5 Billion Dollars?

5 Billion dollar budget. Good grief.

[erronis]

5. What's a few $B nowadays? Putin and Mnuchin can print as much as they want.

The main thing is to strangle the common people. They were getting too "uppity", too expecting a normal life with education, health, housing.

[underpants]

6. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money

[Faux pas]

4. Is

this OUR tax money at work? There's gotta be law?!?
and

[crickets]

7. Disturbing article - a must read. K&R for visibility.