The Green Monster

My latest article for POLITICO Magazine, “The Green Monster,” examines the problems inside the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, which has seen dramatic (and poorly managed) growth since 9/11.  As I write in the piece, “What emerges is the largely overlooked story behind the story of the perennial border crises, in which the best intentions and worst impulses of the Bush administration met the laissez-faire management and political cynicism of the Obama administration. The result? A massive agency—freshly militarized by billions of dollars of weapons and technology and thousands of poorly vetted gun-carrying personnel hired in the panicky years after 9/11—was left adrift as violence and corruption in its ranks rose dramatically.”