Retweets of posts from a former Trump administration official by West Texas Border Patrol are "totally unacceptable" and will be investigated, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner said.
CBP West Texas shared posts — related to crime and also critical of President Joe Biden and the media — on Saturday made by Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to then-President Donald Trump.
"Violent criminals lay waste to our communities undisturbed while the immense power of the state is arrayed against those whose only crime is dissent," Miller tweeted and West Texas CBP shared. "The law has been turned from a shield to protect the innocent into a sword to conquer them."
"The media's greatest power is its ability to frame what is a dire national crisis (eg 'cops are racist' summer '20) and what is not. Biden's eradication of our border means we are no longer a Republic — he's ended nearly 250 years of constitutional government. The media is silent," said another Miller tweet shared by West Texas CBP.
The retweets later were deleted from the CBP West Texas Twitter account, which the agency said would be deactivated. The account remained active on Monday morning,
"Totally unacceptable and disappointing that any CBP Twitter account was used to R/T offensive, unauthorized content. … This must not happen again," tweeted Magnus, who added that the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility will investigate the incident.
Miller, who helped drive Trump's immigration policy, blasted the Biden administration's decision to investigate the matter.
"Joe Biden's soulless open border crusade is killing thousands of innocents. Death and destruction everywhere. But instead of going after the murderous cartels, they are going after agents for RTs of pro-border messages. The Biden Administration hates the law and law enforcement," Miller tweeted Sunday night.
A Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) report last month revealed that 4.9 million migrants — including 900,000-plus "got-aways" who eluded apprehension from border officials — have unlawfully crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office in January 2021.
CBP statistics showed that 199,976 encounters with migrants occurred in July — the first month in five that the total was below 207,000.