How desperate is Chuck Schumer to gut President Donald Trump’s immigration staff? So much that the Democrat called on a Trump immigration official to resign from an office he hasn’t filled yet.
The New York senator demanded that “acting CBP [Customs and Border Protection] Commissioner” Mark Morgan step down — but Morgan is the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), not CBP, The Daily Caller reports. Schumer demanded a wider shake-up in immigration staff Wednesday amid a Democratic furor over conditions at immigrant detention centers on the border.
“Internal investigations aren’t enough because the leadership at CBP, particularly Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan, are too callous about the way in which children and their families are treated, which is why we need untainted professionals to be brought in from outside the CBP structure immediately,” Schumer said in a statement.
Morgan has led ICE in an acting capacity since May. It was announced in June that Morgan would take over CBP, but the change in leadership hasn’t yet materialized.
Mix-up in Schumer’s office
Whether out of impatience or simple ineptitude, Schumer’s office blasted out a press release Wednesday titled, “Schumer Calls For Acting CBP Commissioner Morgan And Other Top Leadership At Agency To Be Fired And For New, Untainted Team To Be Brought In To Begin Reining In Toxic Culture At Border Patrol Agency.” In the release, Schumer called on a mass firing of CBP leadership over “inexcusable” conditions in immigrant detention centers.
“The horrid conditions CBP has subjected children and families to at the border are nothing short of inhumane and downright inexcusable,” the Senate minority leader wrote. “Too much of CBP has been an out of control agency for too long and it must be reined in immediately.”
Democrats have increasingly criticized the Trump administration in recent days amid a worsening humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) inflamed controversy recently when she called the detention centers “concentration camps,” and she claimed that migrants were forced to drink from toilets after a much-publicized tour of facilities at the border this week.
Officials have admitted that conditions at the border are indeed not ideal, but not as bad as Ocasio-Cortez described. “It definitely isn’t a four-star resort or five-star hotel, but it’s not near what these congress members are making it out to be,” Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told The Daily Caller.
Schumer also said in his release that a shake-up is needed to correct a “toxic culture” at CBP, citing an internal investigation that reportedly found that officials were mocking migrants’ deaths and Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez in a private Facebook group.
“The Inspector General’s report and details of a secret border patrol workers’ Facebook group paint a picture of a toxic culture at U.S. Customs and Border Protection that can only begin to be changed by immediately firing and replacing top leadership at the agency with law enforcement professionals who have training and expertise in working with vulnerable populations,” Schumer wrote.
Where were they?
Schumer’s flub aside, where was he in January when President Trump called on Democrats to help him solve the border crisis? It didn’t take long for Schumer to go from ignoring a “manufactured crisis” to blaming Trump for the worsening situation at the border.
If immigration officials are misbehaving, then that’s one thing. But how is it the fault of cash-strapped immigration departments that the Democrats have refused to secure the border or reform asylum law? Schumer’s party almost shot down a humanitarian aid bill last week for migrants because it didn’t block money for immigration enforcement.
To Schumer’s credit, he took some flak from the far left for signing on with a more bipartisan bill that ended up passing both houses. But this chaos could have been avoided if he learned to play ball sooner.
Schumer and his fellow Democrats are just trying to pass the buck for their failure. Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, called Schumer’s bluster “pathetic.”
“While the [Trump] Administration is treating the situation at the border as the humanitarian crisis that it is, some in Congress are treating the plight of women and children as their own political football trying to score cheap points in the media,” Cuccinelli tweeted. “Calling for trusted, veteran law enforcement officials to resign is just their latest pathetic attempt to shift blame and distract Americans from the fact that Congress’ inaction has made the crisis at the border even worse.”
Indeed, President Trump has been calling on the Democrats to fix the crisis for months. The situation has deteriorated while Congress sat around twiddling their thumbs, and now an estimated 100,000 migrants a month are overwhelming the Department of Homeland Security’s capacity to house, feed, and care for the influx.
The Democrats haven’t been helping, and nothing has changed. Their solution, so far, is to “close the camps.” Okay, then what?
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