by Levar Cole

As a federal inspectors general for the Department of Homeland Security, I spent months on the northern and southern borders conducting Congressional reviews and inspections of the department’s immigration enforcement operations including detention and removal, inspections, interdictions, deterrence, and investigations. I also evaluated the department’s compliance with federal laws and liaison with other federal, state, and local entities and advocacy groups. My teams accompanied border agents in boats, jeeps, aircraft, on horseback, and on foot along both borders. You can look up my name and find the publicly available reports.

Being on the borders and reviewing the enforcement activities of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Border Patrol agents, Air and Marine Operation officers, Detention and Removal agents, Customs Enforcement Officers, Immigration Judges, and Citizenship and Immigration Services officers, gave me a different perspective than what I had before I was dispatched to the borders.

My job was in Washington D.C. having discussions with agency and bureau heads and members of Congress. I quickly learned Washington is one thing and the border is something else. For example, the people protecting and defending the borders see dead children and adult bodies in truck trailers, shipping containers, and rail cars. They see the dead bodies of raped women, and skeletons in the desert. They interdict methamphetamine, fentanyl, radiological materials, and other contraband that have always posed a clear and present danger to the United States. They find children abandoned at the border. I witnessed these things with them nearly 20 years ago. I chatted with some colleagues still doing border work the other day. They said both borders are worse than ever. 

It has always been hard for me to say, follow the legal process if you come here from war and gang devastated areas in South and Central America, Asia, or Africa, or wherever. Yet my friends and some family members who came here legally, from the 1970s to now, fleeing drugs, wars, and gangs, and abject poverty, always demanded I push people to follow the rules. They say it’s not fair that the sex traffickers and extortionists get to follow them to the U.S. and harass them here with the support of all sorts of well-intended NGOs and immigrant advocacy groups.

Friends from Asia explain it is scary that they are surveilled, in their new home, by foreign government operatives who entered illegally.

Family and friends from Central America and the Caribbean say it’s not fair that they followed all the rules and underwent all the vetting to get here and obtain legal status, only to be harassed in their new lives by the criminal gangs, the violence, and the anarchy they fled. Refugees from Afghanistan, who collaborated with old colleagues, are terrified that so many Americans see nothing wrong with allowing anyone to enter without any vetting. These refugees fear they might once again face death threats or attempts on their lives, by people trailing them, because they helped protect American civilians and service members overseas. 

There is an effort underway to remove those who have entered this country illegally. When the agents are permitted to do their jobs, the priority has always been to remove violent criminal offenders. From the looks of it, all around the country, this is going to take some time.

When I performed the oversight function, I didn’t like how some of the immigration enforcement organizations operated and I reported that to the public and Congress. Changes were made and it got better. I don’t like how children are sometimes separated from parents at the border or in the states, but I’ve seen the alternative when I was in South America researching prisons where children are locked up with their parents in a prison’s general population. I do not want that here.

Enforcement has to be done on the border and in the states if only to protect our friends, family, and neighbors who followed the rules and fled from the people entering illegally who can and do harass them and recruit their children into the criminal theft, extortion, robbery, and drug gangs they fled in hope for a new life here.

The author, a Chelsea resident, cultivates vegetables for local markets and homeschools five kids, with his wife Jessica. Levar is a former elected local government official, and federal manager with over 20 years of experience in developing, implementing, and overseeing federal, state, and local policies, regulations, and statutes. Levar served in leadership, managerial, and analyst positions in the areas of government oversight, national defense, homeland security, nuclear safety, and arms control and non-proliferation. He led federal audits, evaluations, and inspections to ensure public accountability, transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness, and reported findings to the public, executives, and members of Congress. Levar also chaired and served as advisor and officer on various federal, state and local government; private, and non-profit boards.