Despite being a “third-generation Mexican-American” as characterized in the piece, Cantu is expected by hispanics to be loyal to his race, not to his nation of citizenship. This attitude should alert us to a strain of disloyalty among hispanics who come for the dollars and little else. According to a 2012 Pew poll, only 21 percent of hispanics say they frequently use the term “American” to describe their identity:

Interestingly, Cantu is an unlikely target of Mexican racists, since he is not a great enthusiast for the border, US sovereignty or anything American. A February 12 PBS Newshour report (How this former Border Patrol agent learned to see through the eyes of those trying to cross) revealed him to be more an academic observer than a friend of law enforcement:

CANTU: “I still have a lot of the same questions that I came into the Border Patrol with. I really see the border as, like, a microcosm for all of these huge issues that we’re grappling with as a nation and as a global society. And so I have no urge to look away from the border.”

What is completely missing from Cantu or the Times is any concern with the mission of the Border Patrol, namely to protect the United States from enemy jihadists and an invasion of job thieves. American workers have suffered decades of lowered wages and outright job loss because of excessive legal and illegal immigration — where’s the sympathy for them? There’s none at the New York Times, where traditional Americans are regarded as an inconvenient block to a diversity utopia run by Democrats.

The New York Times title for the piece is “Border Patrol Memoir Ignites Dispute: Whose Voices Should Be Heard From the Frontier?” while the reprint below emphasized the tribal angle —  which reflects how liberals have so many complaints about borders and sovereignty.

The Latino Who Hunted Latinos, WRAL.com, May 19, 2018

By SIMON ROMERO, New York Times

TUCSON, Ariz. — Writer Francisco Cantú, who spent years as a Border Patrol agent, braced for the fury of anti-immigration figures and his former colleagues when he published a haunting memoir this year delving into authorities’ frequent abuse of immigrants in the Southwest borderlands.

But when such reactions were muted, Cantú wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of criticism he received from the other end of the political spectrum, including undocumented writers and artists around the United States who view the Border Patrol as a paramilitary force inciting fear and destroying families.

Some called Cantu, 32, a third-generation Mexican-American, a “Nazi” and “traitor” for joining the Border Patrol in the first place. Others appeared at readings of his book in California and Texas, drowning out the events by screaming “vendido” — sellout — in his direction. Critics suggested boycotting Cantú’s book, “The Line Becomes a River,” branding him a quisling who profits in others’ blood.

“I don’t see why Cantú gets to be absolved and celebrated by saying he paid witness to the tragedy he was complicit in upholding,” said Jesús Valles, 31, a playwright and public high school teacher in Austin, Texas, who was among those protesting when Cantú recently traveled to Texas for book signings.

“It’s hard to even explain the fear that the Border Patrol instills in people like me,” added Valles, who was smuggled into Texas as a child before obtaining, years later, legal authorization to remain in the country. “It’s a dread of being hunted down like an animal, of seeing your siblings deported. And Cantú gets a fancy book deal after being one of the guys holding the guns.”

The simmering tension around Cantú and his book is igniting an energetic debate over who gets rewarded for telling stories of life along the border, highlighting quarrels between Latinos born in the United States and those who were brought illegally to the country as children as President Donald Trump’s polarizing border wall starts to take shape in the Chihuahuan Desert.

In a twist to the wrangling over his book, Cantú has caught some of his most strident critics off guard by thanking them and siding with them. In public appearances, he has asked that protesters be allowed to speak derisively of him and his book. And in an interview here in Tucson, where he lives, Cantú said he agreed with some of the charges leveled against him.

[. . .]

Still, an overriding influence for Cantú was his own mother, a former park ranger in the Guadalupe Mountains near El Paso. She tried to dissuade him from joining the Border Patrol, and when that didn’t work, she questioned her son about the cruelty of agents who allow migrants to die in the desert.

“She was concerned for the health of my soul,” Cantú said.

(Continues)

Sessions also listed the measures needed in a comprehensive border bill:

• Mandatory E-Verify
• Mandatory detention and repatriation for illegal entrants
• Expedited deportation for border-crossers
• Close asylum loopholes
• Bar access to welfare and tax credits
• Penalties for the Administration’s continued failure to implement the biometric entry-exit system as required by law
• Penalties for the Administration’s continued failure to build 700 miles of double-layer border fence
• Refusing visas to countries with high overstay rates or that will not repatriate their citizens

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul has done decent work in the past, including a 2006 border report (pictured). A 50-page update from 2012 is available online: A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border. It explains the variety of threats posed by an open border, e.g. Iranian influence in Latin America, transnational crime syndicates and violence against Americans committed by illegal aliens.

(Perhaps a third edition could include the public health lessons learned from last summer’s kid invasion, where all sort of communicable diseases such as TB were introduced into America and its schools.)

So McCaul is moderately well informed about the topic, but appears to be adopting an obedient poodle posture toward big-immigration guy, Speaker Boehner, who got a D grade in recent enforcement voting from NumbersUSA.

Border Patrol agents say GOP’s border security bill is weak ‘window dressing’, Washington Times, January 24, 2015

Border Patrol agents’ labor union announced their opposition Friday to the House GOP’s new border security bill, calling it “window dressing” that doesn’t add any new agents or updated their firepower to get the job done in sealing off the U.S.-Mexico border.

The agents’ opposition could be a major problem for House GOP leaders who have scheduled a vote on their bill for Wednesday, but who are facing a revolt among some conservative lawmakers who say the bill needs to go much further.

The legislation, written by House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, would direct the Homeland Security Department to build about 50 miles of more fencing, to fly more drones and add more technology sector-by-sector along the border, and to come up with a strategy for catching 100 percent of illegal immigrants or smugglers trying to cross.

But the National Border Patrol Council said the bill needs to be more specific in calling for an additional 5,000 agents on the southwest border — there are about 20,000 now — and for updating training to a 20-week course, and to acquire more M-4 rifles and other gear so they can operate out in the field.

“This legislation speaks about metrics but frankly does not provide either the strategy or the resources necessary to achieve them,” said Shawn Moran, spokesman for the union. “We need real solutions on the border where the trends are moving in the wrong direction with increased apprehensions, more aggressive action from smugglers and drug cartels, and continued threats from terrorists.”

Indeed, numbers show that illegal immigration has risen over the last few years, after dropping dramatically during the depths of the economic slump. The Obama administration was caught off-guard last year by a surge of illegal immigrants from Central America, who overwhelmed the immigration services and exposed serious loopholes in U.S. policy.

The labor union for immigration officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, one of the other immigration agencies, announced its opposition to the GOP’s border bill earlier this week, saying that it didn’t do anything to change those policy loopholes that allowed illegal immigrants to show up at the border and claim asylum, guaranteeing immediate entry into the country, where they could disappear into the shadows.

President Obama contends the border is secure and getting safer. His Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, issued a statement last week blasting the McCaul bill, saying it went too far in requiring certain actions. He said instead of setting new goals and requiring more fencing, Congress should give his department more money so it can pursue its own strategy.

“The bill does nothing to provide what the Department of Homeland Security really needs from Congress — appropriated funding to pay for vital homeland security initiatives,” he said.

Republican leaders are now caught between Democrats on Capitol Hill, who side with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Obama in asking for money but no new policies, and conservatives, who are reluctant to give the administration more money if it will be used to follow through on Mr. Obama’s new executive amnesties, which he announced without getting congressional approval.

Mr. McCaul said his bill is a first step, and GOP leaders have promised to tackle bigger immigration policy questions later this year, saying they want to take immigration step-by-step.

“The bill matches resources to needs putting fencing where fencing is needed and technology where technology is needed. My constituents in my home district and my home state of Texas spoke loud and clear. They want the border secured,” Mr. McCaul said.

His bill cleared his committee on a party-line vote last Wednesday.