Yes They Can (Or At Least, They've Made a Good Start)

I see more and more news about this sense of dread among Federal employees, even of a Federal bureaucrat resistance movement, Alt-Gov types who are subversively undermining the Trump Administration in all sorts of ways. Like this:

But there’s another level of resistance to the new president that is less visible and potentially more troublesome to the administration: a growing wave of opposition from the federal workers charged with implementing any new president’s agenda.

Less than two weeks into Trump’s administration, federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president’s initiatives. Some federal employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word of changes that Trump appointees are trying to make.

And a few government workers are pushing back more openly, incurring the wrath of a White House that, as press secretary Sean Spicer said this week about dissenters at the State Department, sends a clear message that they “should either get with the program, or they can go.”

Getting with the program may be a problem for some of my fellow feds, but I know of at least one group of civil servants who are unquestionably WITH the program, and that's the nation's Border Patrol and Immigration Agents. Their employee unions put out a joint press release to state just how enthusiastically they are on the Trump Train:

As representatives of the nation’s Frontline immigration officers and agents responsible for enforcing our laws and protecting our borders, we fully support and appreciate President Trump’s swift and decisive action to keep the American people safe and allow law enforcement to do its job. We applaud the three executive orders he has issued to date, and are confident they will make America safer and more prosperous. Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders. The men and women of ICE and Border Patrol will work tirelessly to keep criminals, terrorists, and public safety threats out of this country, which remains the number one target in the world – and President Trump’s actions now empower us to fulfill this life saving mission, and it will indeed save thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Supportive, appreciative, confident, and of exponentially improved morale. The working levels of the Border Patrol and ICE sound like they could not possibly be more happy with the change in administrations. This week's surge of immigration raids - or routine enforcement actions, if you like - seems to be proof of that.