Todd Miller

"There have been many clues over the years that foreshadowed what is happening now in Minnesota and other cities. From 1994 to 2012, the Border Patrol grew from 4,000 to 21,000 agents, with yearly budget increases, each bringing more capabilities and allowing the agency to expand to more locations, regardless of the president’s politics. For decades, CBP has been deployed at large events like the Super Bowl—no matter where it is—and at presidential inaugurations (Washington, DC, is in the 100-mile zone). In 2014, constitutional lawyer John Whitehead called DHS “America’s standing army,” noting that it possessed about 260 million rounds of ammo, or about 1,400 rounds per agent. In his essay, Whitehead also mentioned license plate readers, detention camps, cell phone tracking, military drills in U.S. cities, checkpoints, spy networks, searches, surveillance cameras, drones, and spybots. These observations, at the time, barely made a blip on the national media’s radar. Meanwhile, the U.S. government maintained the borderlands, both south and north, as a zone of exclusion, which it used to test out policies, practices, and strategies—including the use of force and other forms of suppression like walls and surveillance systems. These zones of exclusion have served as proving grounds for tactics and technology that can be extended to the rest of the country. This is what we’re seeing today." @memomiller theborderchronicle.com/borde…

Profitable Violence: A New Era of the Border Industrial Complex “Since the inception of DHS and its agencies CBP and ICE after 9/11, many scholars, journalists, activists, and thinkers have been warning about this special hybrid police/military force that operates with extra-constitutional powers. Throughout those years, with more forceful budgets, we’ve seen their expansion across the borderlands of the United States, both south and north, and increasingly along the coasts. The budget for ICE/CBP in 2026 is anticipated to be $34.3 billion, which will be yet another record. There is money for more detention capacity, transportation for removal operations, biometric screening and vetting, artificial intelligence capabilities, integrated and autonomous surveillance towers, and the hiring of new agents for both CBP and ICE.” @memomiller theborderchronicle.com/p/pro…