Alex Vindman

We were operating amongst the civilian population with the intent of winning hearts and minds.

Our folks were properly trained to deescalate, to limit the use of force, not going in there to crack some skulls the way we see some of this happening.

Not there with face masks on to protect identity so that they could engage in abuses.

So it's masks off, it's proper training, it's making sure that they're deescalating in confrontations.

That is the bare minimum.

But we should also be clear that I think that both parties

have utterly failed with regards to immigration reform and, frankly, border security.

It is sovereign responsibility of a state to control its borders, to understand who's coming in, who's coming out, the flows of populations to protect.

It's a national security function.

So we could have done better on this function across multiple different administrations.

And we've utterly abrogated our responsibility for immigration

and left millions of people in an untenable situation, whether that's DACA kids that came here and ended up having a legal status that's then being kind of pulled out from under them.

And I'm willing to tackle some of these issues that have been too hard because it's simply the right thing to do.

We're seeing under this administration cruelty,

deep insecurity bred into specific communities, minority communities, communities of color.

And that is, to me, it's un-American.

And we need to put a stop to some of these actions and activities.

I think part of the solution is simply technological.

That would allow us to be able to do just the basic nuts and bolts of monitoring.

I think that we are missing the boat if we think just in the context of literally the border itself.