In early July, Propublica reported on the existence of “I’m 10-15,” a private Facebook group of nearly 10,000 members named for the Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.” According to the publication, agents in the group posted a widely circulated photo of a migrant father and daughter face-down in a river along the southern border, suggesting it could have been “edited” by the “dems and liberal parties.” In another post, a photo illustration of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is captioned “Lucky Illegal Immigrant Glory Hole Special Starring AOC.”
At the time, Vicki Gaubeca, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, suggested the images reflected the palpable misogyny within the agency and Border Patrol’s lack of women agents. Shortly after the ProPublica story published, Provost called the posts “completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out.”
But as The Intercept reported on Friday morning, Provost posted to “I’m 10-15" three months into her tenure as the chief of the agency, though she left the group at an unspecified time before news of the group’s existence broke. In a comparatively benign addition to the group, Provost replied to a post from a commenter noting she’d been promoted as a supervisor after only two years in the field.
“It was actually 3 years......hard to turn down when they offer it to you......just saying,” she wrote. Carla Provost: a true feminist pioneer.
On top of that, the Border Patrol has now been caught in more bad behavior under Provost's tenure.
An unofficial commemorative coin has been circulating among Border Patrol agents at the U.S./Mexico border, mocking the task of caring for migrant children and other duties that have fallen to agents as families cross into the U.S.
On the front, the coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag — a caricature of the “caravan” from last fall, which started in Honduras and attracted thousands of people as it moved north. (While the caravan included many women and children, the only visible figures on the coin appear to be adult men.)
The coin’s reverse side features the Border Patrol logo and three illustrations: a Border Patrol agent bottle-feeding an infant; an agent fingerprinting a teen boy wearing a backwards baseball cap; and a U.S. Border Patrol van. The text along the edge reads “FEEDING ** PROCESSING ** HOSPITAL ** TRANSPORT.”
The coin appears to poke fun at the fact that many border agents are no longer out patrolling and instead are now caring for and processing migrants — including families and children.
Hysterical.
What's not so funny is that ProPublica's reporting this week on the Border Patrol has touched a nerve, and that the agency now openly considers the investigative journalists there to be a threat.
A senior Border Patrol official, who directs a key intelligence-gathering center, on Thursday circulated an inflammatory opinion article that blasted ProPublica’s reporting on a secret Facebook group for current and former agents and described the news organization as a threat to the agency and its members.
A link to the article, which specifically castigates ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson for his articles about the degrading posts in the group, was sent in an email to top intelligence officials at the agency’s headquarters in Washington and to field offices across the country. Sources said other supervisors then shared it widely with agents under their command.
The article was widely distributed by Michael E. Powell, director of the Customs and Border Protection’s Northern Border Coordination Center, and comes as the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, the CPB, which it oversees, and the Border Patrol have publicly condemned the Facebook posts and launched investigations into the group.
I mean when the guy in the White House constantly and consistently calls the press enemies of the people, why shouldn't the agencies under the executive branch behave any differently? It was just a year ago that a Maryland newsroom was shot up killing five reporters. Why wouldn't the violence of the Trump regime itself not be directed against those who dare reveal the truth?
The article was published on a website called Law Enforcement Today, and was written by a woman named Dawn Perlmutter, who describes herself as an expert on “symbols, symbolic methodologies, atypical homicide and ritualistic crimes.”
It alleges that ProPublica’s reporting about the secret Facebook group, which was known as “I’m 10-15,” was part of an “anti-police information operation” that was “calculated to incite hatred against CBP, ICE and DHS officers, provide party-line propaganda for the media and ignite protests to further political agendas.” And it claimed that Thompson, who broke the story about the Facebook group, “essentially doxed CBP officers,” when he published the posts.
“Thompson’s byline says he covers hate crimes and racial extremism, when in fact, he perpetuates it,” the piece reads. “His irresponsible reporting incites police hatred and endangers officers’ lives under the guise of social justice.”
Really aren't too far away now from ICE or Border Patrol or some other Trump agency hurting or even killing a journalist. They're already putting kids in cages, and yes, those kids are dying.
We're the bad guys in this story. This is being done in our name, by the people this country elected, and we continue to tolerate them doing this in our name.