This article was provided by an active U.S. Border Patrol agent who is stationed on the Texas-Mexico border. The agent’s name has been withheld.
This week, a supervisor in the U.S. Border Patrol cut boundary wires that hold the line on illegal migrations from Mexico. His actions opened a floodgate to thousands of daily illegal border crossings. The Texas National Guard immediately directed its own agents to fix the wire in an effort to stop the flood.
These acts in a single day at a single location perfectly display the opposing views of our state and the federal governments about the border crisis.
On one hand, Texas’ mission is to secure the border with all available state, county and local resources. Texas’ efforts are coordinated to protect the state’s forces, populations, and infrastructure.
On the other hand, Washington’s mission is to facilitate a safe, orderly and humane environment for the migration of millions of “refugees” and asylum seekers.
These competing missions are evident in the contrasting policies of Governor Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star” and President Biden’s “LA Declaration of Migration and Protection.” They represent opposing paradigms of border security, where open borders competes with closed borders, globalism competes with nationalism, and cooperation competes with confrontation.
The missions are not only incompatible, they are also antagonistic, creating friction and hostility among law enforcement agencies at the border.
The situation is made worse by an information campaign waged by the Biden administration and its allies in the media and academia.
This open-border coalition portrays Texas law enforcement officials as villains who violate human rights and abuse migrants, and praises federal agents as heroes who save lives and uphold justice.
The coalition, led by Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, also spreads misinformation and propaganda about the nature and magnitude of the threats at the border, downplaying and denying the existence of cartels, terrorism, and the magnitude of what appears to Texans as an invasion.
U.S. Border Patrol agents with illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. (Loren Elliott/Reuters)
As a result, many Border Patrol agents have fallen prey to coercion by the coalition, as well as to careerism, desensitization and hypocrisy. They have been pressured to abandon their oaths of office and their commitment to border security, and to adopt a more compliant and accommodating attitude toward illegal immigration.
They have been induced to follow orders blindly, obey authority unquestioningly, conform mindlessly, ignore or rationalize their moral contradictions, and sacrifice their integrity for their career survival.
This is a betrayal of the mission and values of Border Patrol agents. We are not on the border with Mexico to serve any political agenda or ideology. We are on the border to serve our country and the American people. Our obligation is to secure the border and protect the nation’s sovereignty, and to uphold the Constitution and our laws. The role of the U.S. Border Patrol is supposed to be to “hold the line.”
From the perspective of many agents, the federal government is enabling mass migration and disinformation, even knowing that it is undermining the sovereignty and stability of the U.S. and many states.
There are many examples of governments using this tactic against their adversaries, such as Cuba through the 1980 Mariel boatlift, Iraq in the 1991 Kurdish exodus, and Belarus in a 2021 border crisis.
Governments and non-state actors have used the same tactic at least 81 times since the advent of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which granted those fleeing political persecution the right to seek asylum in states that are signatories to the agreement. But this may be the first time a government is allowing mass migration to become a weapon against its own sovereignty, or against the authority of its own states.
Izzat Joe Biden?
The Biden Administration exacerbated a growing humanitarian crisis by encouraging illegal immigration through new incentives, and by effectively neutering our immigration laws. Every agent knows that prosecutorial discretion is a strong indicator of when a law is still considered a law.
To make matters worse, international NGOs, legal professionals, and academics operate as a network to equate border enforcement with crimes against humanity. Their misinformation coerces U.S. citizens to accept and assimilate millions of illegal migrants without proper vetting or regulation.
This effectively alters the missions of federal institutions from security to humanitarian efforts. It also erodes social cohesion and trust, fosters polarization, undermines state governments’ legitimacy and authority, and weakens our resistance against cartels.
These are facts confirmed by my own experiences serving every day on the front lines at the border. And they are the conditions that every agent with his or her ‘boots on the ground’ faces daily. These are truths every American should understand.
Written for Lone Star Standard ~ September 22, 2023