Only three Border Patrol agents have been fired in the six months since a secret Facebook page containing offensive remarks was exposed last summer, less than half the minimum number a U.S. Customs and Border Protection review recommended for termination, the Washington Examiner has learned.
“The egregious ones were absolutely bad and needed to be dealt with,” said a senior official at CBP, which oversees the 21,000 members of Border Patrol. An internal review board at CBP had recommended that at least seven be terminated.
In addition to terminations, the board ordered that at least 20 others face discipline. The senior CBP official, who was not authorized to speak with the media, said 30-day suspension proposals to temporarily take agents off duty with no pay were issued, but “a lot of these proposals” ended as letters of reprimand.
Last July, ProPublica reported on a Facebook page titled “I’m 10-15,” where a number of the 9,500 group members, which included federal agents, joked about heinous incidents involving Democratic lawmakers and immigrants. “10-15” is code for when a Border Patrol agent has taken someone into custody.
Posts included memes that depicted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York offering to give oral sex to men in Border Patrol custody and President Trump forcibly pushing the same congresswoman’s head down toward his crotch. Other posts discussed throwing burritos at Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, who had described the facilities as concentration camps during a recent tour of El Paso Border Patrol stations. Some group members made fun of the migrant father and young child whose bodies were found on the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas in June.
CBP, a Department of Homeland Security agency comprising roughly 60,000 employees, said in July it would investigate agents’ use of the page. That same month, its Office of Professional Responsibility, which looks into internal concerns, said it had determined that 62 current employees, primarily Border Patrol, belonged to the page.
Carla Provost, the outgoing chief of Border Patrol, was named by the Intercept as a group member. The story claimed she was active on the page and included a screenshot of a comment she made on a post in late 2018. Rodney Scott, who the Washington Examiner reported on Monday is expected to replace Provost at the end of January, was also among a handful of Border Patrol leaders who subscribed to the page.
Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, said it was hard to conclude whether the number fired was sufficient. “In general, the border patrol has a poor track record of holding employees accountable, and [with] a politically powerful union — the reduction in severity of punishments may be a reflection of that,” she wrote in an email.
CBP sent 59 cease and desist letters to members of the Facebook page, threatening future legal action if they continued inappropriate social media activity that degrades people in custody, lawmakers, or others. Agents whom the organization tried to fire or discipline were given the chance to respond to the accusations before a final determination was made.
CBP did not respond to a request for comment.
