I think an argument could be made that the agencies’ rottenness hadn’t mattered, that prior to 2025 they would have been this disastrous, but were never broadly deployed in a way where it had such dire consequences as now.
I think the agencies’ rottenness was a back burner issue. It mattered, but there were so many other things that mattered more. There’s also the fact that the victims of awful ICE and Border Patrol agents were almost never Americans. They even knew better than to touch Europeans or rich Asians. As a result, any terrible things they did mostly stayed under the radar.
I think an argument could be made that the agencies’ rottenness hadn’t mattered, that prior to 2025 they would have been this disastrous, but were never broadly deployed in a way where it had such dire consequences as now.
I think the agencies’ rottenness was a back burner issue. It mattered, but there were so many other things that mattered more. There’s also the fact that the victims of awful ICE and Border Patrol agents were almost never Americans. They even knew better than to touch Europeans or rich Asians. As a result, any terrible things they did mostly stayed under the radar.