Despite spending an entire campaign denigrating Mexican immigrants and promising to enlist a deportation force, the Department of Homeland Security is now telling Donald Trump that they have found no need to hire the thousands of Border Patrol agents and immigration officers he requested just days after taking office.
According to The Hill, Trump’s surge plan is “unrealistic and unnecessary” and neither ICE nor Customs and Border Protection has identified where they would even deploy the extra agents.
More from the report:
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general says that President Trump’s plan to hire an additional 15,000 Border Patrol agents and immigration officers is unrealistic and may be unnecessary.
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Within days of taking office, Trump signed executive orders calling on the agency to hire 5,000 Border Patrol agents and another 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
But according to a report released last week by the Homeland Security’s watchdog, the agency would have to take on a pool of 750,000 applicants in order to hire 5,000 Border Patrol Agents. Likewise, ICE would have to vet more than 500,000 applicants to hire 10,000 personnel.
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The report also found that neither Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or ICE are currently able to correctly identify how many additional employees they need to hire, what kind of hires are needed and where to deploy the additional employees.
It’s clear, once again, that the realities of governing a country and making sound policy have collided with the empty and ill-informed rhetoric Trump spewed on the campaign trail.
Instead of offering a thoughtful, reality-based vision for the country when he was running for president, Trump decided to fuel an entire campaign on minority resentment – now he’s finding out that hateful rhetoric doesn’t translate to practical policymaking.
Donald Trump’s entire presidential campaign was built on the belief that illegal immigration is the most pressing issue facing the country – it’s not – but he has accomplished none of the things he promised to achieve in this area, from a Mexico-funded border wall to a mass deportation of more than 11 million immigrants.
It’s no wonder the vast majority of Americans have already tuned him out and are patiently waiting for his exit from the White House.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
