The raids were never planned and never happened.
By Matthew A. McIntosh
Editor-in-Chief
Brewminate
The raids are coming! We’re going to round up thousands of these illegals!
That’s what Donald Trump said.
The raids were a great success!
That’s what he said later.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t true when he warned about it, and it wasn’t true when he gloated about it. The raids were never planned and never happened.
I had a conversation in Houston with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who answered some questions on conditions of anonymity for obvious reason:
MAM: Were ICE offices preparing for raids after President Trump announced them to the public?
AGENT: No. We were all sort of laughing about it when he said they were coming because raids on city-wide scales, especially in multiple cities, would take months to plan and then execute. We never did that. It was news to us too!
MAM: Could you have pulled it off with such short notice?
AGENT: Absolutely not, no way. It’s not like we can just go out and drive around looking for a place to raid. We would have to spend a lot of time planning it, establish clear targets, and then organize how to approach the targets to pull off that many arrests. And in one day? That’s crazy. Of course not.
MAM: Were there an unusual number of detentions or arrests on the days Trump announced?
AGENT: No, really it was business as usual. The only ones even thinking about it were the media because he was talking about it and people watching. Our work across the country, and I checked the cities he spoke about, was no different and actually there were fewer arrests than normal in several of them. None of this happened. Honestly, it wasn’t intended to happen.
MAM: What do you mean, not intended?
AGENT: Well, we had no prior notice, made no plans, didn’t even know about it. Why would the president be talking about something happening that wasn’t happening? The only thing I can imagine is he just wanted to say it for whatever reason, obviously politics or something. It works well with his voters anyway.
MAM: I’ve often talked about “red meat” for his base. Do you think that is what it what all about?
AGENT: Oh for sure. No doubt about it. Even friends I work with who like him admit that, they just laugh about it.
MAM: Is it your perception that Trump is well-supported among ICE personnel?
AGENT: Well, law enforcement always supports Republicans a lot more. But really more are getting frustrated with him because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I mean he actually gave unlawful orders we can’t follow.
MAM: Yes, I remember that. Border Patrol superiors were standing with him in a press conference at one point and reportedly told officers afterward not to obey those orders.
AGENT: That’s true. And what’s funny is I know one of the people you saw standing beside him and smiling, and that person actually doesn’t like him at all. But he needs his job, so.
MAM: Have you personally seen conditions in the camps at the border?
AGENT: Yes, but we’re really getting out of my wheel house here. I don’t really spend a lot of time there, just once in a while. But yeah, it’s bad, really bad. People shouldn’t be treated like that. It smells so bad and they’re begging for basic things like showers, food, you know.
MAM: You’ve been with ICE for quite some time. Have you ever seen things like this?
AGENT: No way. It’s never been this crazy. I mean yeah, illegal immigration has always been a problem, no doubt. But things were more streamlined and the way these people are treated, just no way, never like this.
MAM: Would you say Trump has created a crisis that didn’t exist?
AGENT: Well like I said illegal immigration has always been a problem. But yeah, he made it the way it is now, and it didn’t have to be.
MAM: But many say it was the same under President Obama.
AGENT: I don’t know what to tell them, that’s just not true. It’s a stupid thing to say, just stupid. Look, I voted for President Trump, but I didn’t think he was going to be so bad.
MAM: Do you plan to vote for him again?
AGENT: Not a chance. He’s just made everything so much worse and made problems that didn’t even exist in the first place. I never vote for Democrats, but I’m going to next time.
MAM: Do you feel that perhaps you’re being too political as an ICE agent?
AGENT: Well, no. I mean, it’s not like I go to work and talk about politics and Trump or anything like that. I do my job. But I’m an American and I have a right to think what I want and vote. It’s not like we can’t have opinions.
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