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Criminals who prey on children are receiving a boost from President Donald Trump who, as part of his drive to increase immigration busts and deportations, has diverted law enforcement agents once tasked with investigating vile online predator groups.
The right-leaning CATO Institute released a report based on leaked internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement records that shows thousands of agents have been directed to focus on the Trump administration’s cruel immigration agenda instead.
According to the data that CATO received, nearly 20% of agents from the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI have been diverted, along with over 40% of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Homeland Security Investigations.
“Agents aren’t out there recruiting sources. They are not maintaining trip wires. They are not able to keep their ear to the ground about what’s happening among extremist movements,” former senior FBI executive Michael Feinberg told MSNBC.
Related | Epstein survivors blast Trump and beg Congress to release files
For instance, members of the domestic terrorism squad based in Baltimore were involved in investigating the so-called 764 group, which the FBI previously described as a “nihilistic violent extremist group.” But according to law enforcement sources that spoke to MSNBC, members of the squad were deployed in March to round up undocumented immigrants and fewer agents are available to investigate 764 group cases.
The 764 group seeks out teenagers via social media and coerces them into committing depraved acts. These have included creating graphic pornography, harming family pets, making bomb threats, and others. The group extorts its victims and deepens their control of them by threatening to release recordings of these acts.
FBI Assistant Director David Scott told ABC News in a May report that one of the group’s goals is to “sow chaos” and “bring down society.”
But Trump has made it clear that immigration enforcement via spectacle is his preferred focus. The president and senior members of his administration like deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller have demanded raids and busts that make for good television and social media posts.
By diverting law enforcement resources in favor of creating a xenophobic show, Trump and company continue their work helping pedophiles and other criminal deviants who prey on children. Aided by congressional Republicans, the administration has refused to release the full details and files surrounding sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring.
Many of Epstein’s victims, who were preyed upon when they were underage, have slammed the lawmakers’ callous responses. But the administration wants to put on a show, and it’s clearly okay with children suffering as long as Trump can provide more material for the Republican Party’s racist base.
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Oliver Willis
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