we were discussing a 2009 incident where a helicopter crash in Afghanistan had killed three DEA agents. Sitting in his own executive suite in the FBI offices, he told me how he’d sensed among the bureau’s leadership a certain professional jealousy in watching the reaction of the DEA after those tragic deaths.

“You know,” the agent said, “I always got the impression — not that the leadership wanted any of us individually to get hurt or killed — but that they kind of hoped the bureau would get bloodied at some point so that it would feel like the bureau had made a sacrifice for the war.”

I’ve returned to that conversation and theme watching public remarks in recent months by Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Greg Bovino.

So they’re not really in danger of physical violence, but not for a lack of hope and effort by their bosses who do all they can to manufacture situations where one of them will get killed. Somehow this combination makes it seem extra pathetic to be an ice agent.