Civil Servant Alarm

Civil servants have long resisted presidential immigration policies. However, bureaucratic by superiors, retaliation against resistance is the norm under the current dministration, despite the fact that this resistance has resulted from principled “dissonance” between civil servants’ understanding of their core responsibilities and the priorities emphasized by new political directives. Rather than condemnation, however, frequent incidents of resistance from divergent factions of the immigration bureaucracy, particularly if met with a harsh response from the President, should be characterized as a “fire alarm” imploring a congressional response.