it was a weird situation though. Trump was testing out all kinds of weird designs for the wall.
But it actually Kevin McAleenan that started the debacle with the zero tolerance and the separation of families and the human rights violations:
“McAleenan advocated for the implementation of the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy on immigration, including the prosecution of parents and the separation of children from their families. According to fifteen of his colleagues, he was one of the most vocal proponents of the policy within the administration. In April 2018, he issued a memorandum calling on Kirstjen Nielsen to begin enacting the policy, in spite of the fact that Nielsen believed that Border Patrol was not prepared to implement it.”
That wasn’t Trump’s doing. He may have inspired it but it was a gung ho financially emboldened head of Homeland Security that jumped the gun and created the big mess.
It wasn’t long before Kirstjen Nielsen resigned as head of Border Patrol because, well, it was a huge mess and they were indeed ill-prepared to handle the requirements issued by Kevin McAleenan.
But then to compound things, Trump just annoints (not appoints because there’s rules) McAleenan as head of Border Patrol.
After compounding the problems as the new chief, the GAO finally straightened things out that that was an illegal line of succession and therefore NOT ONLY was McAleenan illegally in that position but so were BOTH of his named successors:
Chad Wolf and Kenneth Cuccinelli, who both equally botched the border situation even further themselves.