People have put up anti-Border Patrol signs in Southern Arizona before, bashing the agency or telling agents not to trespass.
But a new sign, along the highway in St. David, is the first Iβve heard of that targets the agentsβ union, the National Border Patrol Council.
βBORDER PATROLβ the sign shouts at the top.
βTHE MEAN GREEN UNIONIZED KILLING MACHINEβ
βShooting Unarmed Children Advances The Mission?β
βThese KILLERS Protected by Their Unionβ
Some might consider the over-the-top banner a danger sign for the union that represents about 3,500 agents in Southern Arizona and about 16,000 nationwide. Who wants to have such angry enemies? But another way to look at it is this: The union is forcing people to reckon with it, even if itβs done so by embracing rhetoric and allies that turn off a swath of the public.
Over the last few years, the National Border Patrol Council has become increasingly outspoken on political issues, especially immigration enforcement. This year, the union reinforced that stance by endorsing Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu for U.S. House in Congressional District 1 and Donald Trump for president.
Theyβre risky moves for a federal union that has achieved some remarkable successes in recent years. Perhaps most important, the union got the Border Patrol Pay Reform Bill through Congress in 2014. That ensured agents a simplified system for overtime pay.
More recently, the union has forced Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske to explain policies telling agents to release people who have been here illegally since before 2014. But as the year progresses, the union seems to be going beyond the grunt work of contracts, workplace complaints and administrative policies, risking some of its hard-won credibility on a particular strain of right-wing politics.
The sign in St. David, it turns out, was put up by a septuagenarian couple long involved in human-rights activism along the Arizona-Mexico border. James and Patricia Cooper participated in Humane Borders during the early 2000s before leaving the state for a few years, then returning in 2014.
Theyβre still unhappy with what they see as impunity for bad acts committed by agents. Seeing an agent at a local shop wearing a hat that referred to agents as βThe Mean Greenβ is what inspired James Cooper to challenge them publicly.
βItβs an effort to tell the public they have some problems, and theyβre more than just perception,β he said. βThere is no justice in the Border Patrol.β
The tool theyβve chosen is ridicule.
βWhen you ridicule, you take away the fear,β said Patricia Cooper, who designed the sign using an online service. βWhen you take away the fear, you take away the power.β
But βshooting unarmed childrenβ? Well, there have been a few questionable cases, most prominently the 2012 shooting of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez in Nogales, for which agent Lonnie Swartz was charged with murder. Still, agents rescue many, many times the number of children that have ever been shot.
βFor somebody to put up a sign that says weβre killing children, thatβs ridiculous,β said Art del Cueto, president of Local 2544 of the union, which represents agents in the Tucson sector.
Ironically, the Coopersβ sign actually plays into the unionβs conception of itself: Defending agents from domestic criticism and administrative incompetence while protecting the country from foreign invaders. A vein of defensiveness against critics, such as the ACLU, human-rights groups and journalists, runs through the unionβs regular podcast, βThe Green Line.β
And its opening β the Nightβs Watch oath from the TV show βGame of Thronesβ β speaks to the self-image of the union as an unappreciated defender against lawlessness:
βNight gathers and my watch begins,β the oath starts. βIt shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post.β
With a self-image like that, no wonder the union is receptive to politicians like Trump. Del Cueto helped push the endorsement through the unionβs executive committee.
Why? Itβs not just the idea of a border wall. Del Cueto told me it was pretty persuasive when Trump called and asked for the unionβs endorsement, pledging to include the union in border-related decisions.
And he noted that, while endorsing Trump in the primary was unprecedented, the union has endorsed many other candidates, even Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, before.
But thatβs clearly not where the unionβs political passion lies now. The union has presented itself as a truth-teller against Obama administration appointees who head its agency, picking sides in a partisan debate over the border, even as apprehensions remain historically low.
βThis is not a liberal union,β host Shawn Moran said on βThe Green Lineβ earlier this month. βIt is a very conservative union.β
In fact, its endorsement of Trump sounded as much like an angry caller to a talk-radio program as it did a considered opinion representing 16,000 diverse federal employees:
βWe need a person in the White House who doesnβt fear the media, who doesnβt embrace political correctness, who doesnβt need the money, who is familiar with success, who wonβt bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and NOT subservient to the interests of other nations. Donald Trump is such a man.β
Not all the agents were happy. In El Paso, the union local held a vote to decide whether to back out of the Trump endorsement, but that effort failed by a 14-13 vote.
The unionβs increasing politicization also shows in its embrace of Babeu, a sheriff with a national profile but a lot of baggage. On Monday, Babeu warned travelers to western Pinal County that intelligence obtained by his department suggested that cartel hit men might be trying to confront βrip crews,β who steal drug loads from smugglers employed by trafficking organizations.
Gunplay in the desert could result, Babeu warned, so outdoor recreationists should go armed.
What were the grounds for Babeuβs warning? No other agency seemed to have any idea.
This is a pattern of Babeuβs β he warns of border violence only for the acts not to materialize. Back in August 2013, he predicted with mysterious specificity that sheriffβs deputies would have gun battles with traffickers within 30 to 60 days.
Last week, the day after his warning, Babeu tried to raise money for his congressional campaign off the alleged threat represented by his intelligence.
βItβs more urgent than ever, and I need your help,β he said in an email. βCan you give $10, $20, $50, or more today so I can continue my fight for secure borders?β
Babeu opponent Wendy Rogers, herself a Republican and Trump supporter, was among many who scoffed at the sheriffβs self-serving alarmism. But National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd defended the remarks, as did del Cueto, saying they reflected reality on the border.
And this is the problem with the position the union has placed itself in. It has gone beyond its perfectly sensible efforts to protect patrol-agent pay, defend agents from accusations of wrongdoing, and even question administrative dictates on immigration.
Instead, it has placed itself in a hard-right niche within the Republican Party. While that may serve its short-term interests by getting it attention and friends who are in political power now, at some point you wonder whether that sort of attention really serves the long-term interests of its members.