Why immigration agents don't quit in protest
The gist
Border Patrol agent Joshua Childress quit and wrote "Why I Quit the Border Patrol" after the zero-tolerance separations.
The essay asks why more agents don't resign in protest.
How it unfolded
- 2012Author Francisco Cantú quit the Border Patrol after nearly four years as an agent, citing reasons similar to Childress's.
- Winter 2018Border Patrol agent Joshua Childress, in his seventh year, was sent to Yuma Regional Medical Center in southwest Arizona to guard a man who had fallen from a thirty-foot-high border wall.
- Summer 2018More than a dozen ICE agents signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen calling for the agency to be disbanded.
Key terms
- Border Patrol
- A federal law enforcement agency under U.S. Customs and Border Protection responsible for securing the nation's borders.
- zero-tolerance policy
- An immigration enforcement approach that prosecutes all unauthorized border crossings, separating migrant children from their parents.
- ICE
- Federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security that enforces immigration and customs laws.
Source: Wikipedia