The Border Patrol's rescue program is being run by the wrong people

It should be turned over to people without massive conflicts of interest, and who lack a very spotty record in general.

Many local officials and residents believe that the Border Patrol should bear primary responsibility for migrant rescues and recoveries. The agency is part of CBP, which is itself part of the Department of Homeland Security, and its resources dwarf those of local emergency teams and nonprofits. But some aid workers and border researchers see a conflict of interest between the agency’s primary mandate, which is to detain and deport migrants, and the humanitarian goal of saving lives. Both outside critics and Border Patrol agents acknowledge that the two goals are intertwined, but only the former see this as a problem.

Type Investigations and High Country News looked into the complicated relationship between the Border Patrol’s law enforcement and rescue operations, using internal documents, data logs, congressional reports, migrant accounts and the testimony of agents. These records reveal how the agency’s dogged pursuit of migrants can increase the danger for those same migrants, occasionally ending in tragedy. Migrants drown or fall off cliffs; they die in car crashes and from the direct use of force by Border Patrol agents. While the agency does appear to pick up thousands of migrant callers alive, those rescues often end in arrest and deportation. So far, there has been little public accountability for the program’s failures, while the data shows that hundreds of migrants who reach out for help fall through the cracks and are never seen again. - High Country News

Trump policy is leaving people, including kids, hungry

The rule took effect February 24. As this article notes, the rule itself isn't entirely the issue. From a news search just now, there is at least one legal challenge pending.

Across the country, fear and confusion about the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule has prompted immigrants and their families to drop out or stay out of public nutrition programs, even when they are eligible, according to immigrant and anti-hunger groups. Enrollment in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and school food programs has been affected, although they are not covered by the new rule, say the advocates. - Mother Jones

Following the money in "border control"

One of the few Latin phrases in my long-term memory is Cui bono, which can be translated as "Who profits?" Of course what's going on now isn't all about money, by any means, but it's an aspect of it that corporate "news" media certainly doesn't dwell on. And the trend started well before Trump, though his administration has brought things to a horrifically degraded extreme.

The report begins by tracing the history of border control and militarization. It shows how US budgets for border and immigration control massively increased from the mid-1980s, a trend that has been accelerating ever since. These budgets rose from $350m in 1980 (then run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)) to $1.2 billion in 1990; $10.2 billion in 2005 and $23.7 billion in 2018 (under two agencies, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)). In other words, budgets have more than doubled in the last 13 years and increased by more than 6000% since 1980. This growth was matched by a similar growth in border patrol from 4,000 agents in 1994 to 21,000 today. Under its parent CBP agency (which includes an Office of Air and Marine, investigative units, and the Office of Field Operations) there are 60,000 agents, the largest federal law- enforcement agency in the United States. - tni