An unlikely institution is being pressganged into assisting in President Donald Trump's war on immigrants: the U.S. Postal Service.
According to The Washington Post, "The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a little-known police and investigative force for the mail agency, recently joined a Department of Homeland Security task force geared toward finding, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals."
Typically, the Postal Inspection Service's mandate is to ensure security for the mail and postal workers and prevent the use of the Postal Service to send illegal materials like drugs or child abuse imagery.
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Homeland Security officials "are seeking photographs of the outside of envelopes and packages — an Inspection Service program known as 'mail covers' — and access to the postal investigation agency’s broad surveillance systems, including Postal Service online account data, package- and mail-tracking information, credit card data and financial material and IP addresses, the people said," the report continued.
The development raised alarms among observers, fearful that the Postal Service's broad reach throughout the country could be dangerous if weaponized.
“The Inspection Service is very, very nervous about this,” an anonymous source close to the Postal Inspection Service said. “They seem to be trying to placate Trump by getting involved with things they think he’d like. But it’s complete overreach. This is the Postal Service. Why are they involved in deporting people?”
Trump has already faced an avalanche of court challenges over his mass deportation schemes, from the removal of a Maryland father protected by a court order to the deportation of U.S. citizen children being treated for cancer.