Air Marshalls Refusing Orders

I can see them not wanting to do a totally different job. While they are federal law enforcement, it would be like if a person was hired as a white collar fraud investigator and then re-assigned as a prison guard. Totally different jobs. Also not exactly the most pleasant areas to have to relocate to! Is the Border Patrol just… totally unable to hire people? It’s not quite the same as the military where the chain of command to the president is absolute. It’s not “orders” they are following/disobeying, and there are possible civil service protections at play which they aren’t wrong to explore.

That being said, with some of their crazy demands sounds like this is yet another police union gone out of control. I can understand them not liking the re-assignment, but I’m guessing these particular guys are mostly being asked to do administrative support and not exactly hardcore desert patrols. So I’m sort of neutral on this. On the one hand I’m not a fan of hijacking agencies to perform different roles (is that really necessary), but sounds like these guys are a little extra entitled. Biden admin probably assumed they’d be flexible about relocation since they are always on the road or in the air anyway (not quite like other agencies that work out of a local field office).

 

They need to do some house cleaning in Border Patrol.
U.S. Border Patrol helps Texas with migrant trespassing arrests | The Texas Tribune.

 

Fire them

 

By the way, this is the flip side of the argument. They already feel really stressed and jerked around.

Nearly 18 years after 9/11, the federal air marshals program is in 'crisis'

 

If my job were an air marshall I would also object to being redeployed to the border. Redeployed to do what? Run around in the desert and apprehend illegal aliens? No thanks.

 

I would too. That would not be the job I signed up for.

 

If the administration doesn’t believe that air marshals are necessary, they should either eliminate or greatly downsize those positions. I’m not going to fault any employee, public or private, for saying they wouldn’t accept another position.

 

The whole airport security and flight security thing needs to be rethought. It has created a class of bureaucrats who are self important and I don’t know what their purpose is other than to hassle the people and make some scared flyers think that they are “safe” flying because morons make sure you don’t take a water bottle on a plane.

 

Biden’s empowered to send them to the border. Marshall’s are empowered to refuse and risk losing their job. Seems like a weird solution though. I hadn’t heard of it til this post.

I wouldn’t fix what isn’t broken though. Planes have been pretty safe since they weren’t.

 

Sounds like you are conflating TSA with air marshals? The air marshals ride the planes (and I think are generally “undercover”), but they aren’t screening you.

Conceptually (without knowing the details of their union or how they operate), I still think air marshals are a good idea. In the last couple of years (post pandemic) there were more crazytowm incidents than ever. If anything, you’d think the air marshals would be quite busy with all those incidents.

Like with all law enforcement, you are sometimes going to get a bad seed or in some cases the need to justify their existence (like dumb police depts who have “quotas” on the # of tickets they write). Maybe there is some of that going on.

 

I was grouping all airport and airplane security together. People need to calm down. I don’t think we need undercover law enforcement on random flights.

 

They have the option of getting a different job.

 

It's my understanding that Federal law enforcement officers can be deployed anywhere at the discretion of the government. That being said, the Air Marshalls may have a valid argument that they are being ordered to perform a mission for which they have not been adequately trained. There is a difference between patrolling the border and providing security on a passenger airliner. I suspect whether or not that's a valid argument will be determined if and when their union formally objects to the order.

 

That isn’t 100% clear.

Maybe there is more flexibility under the broader umbrella of “federal law enforcement” to just re-assign, but generally the President doesn’t get to just repurpose federal agencies to do… whatever. That isn’t how the laws here work, and civil service protections exist to protect against a rogue executive or corrupt SOB like Trump that would try to corrupt the government or use assignments as punitive measures.

Trump didn’t have “absolute power” and neither does Biden. At best, it may be a bit of a grey area here that does technically give Biden the authority (or maybe he has to declare an emergency or some nonsense to do it). Assuming the authority holds up to legal scrutiny, just because he can doesn’t mean he should.

 

Then you'd both be free to find other employment. I'm actually surprised that Air Marshalls are part of a civilian entity and not subject to a branch of the military.

 

It looks like this has happened before:

First on CNN: TSA to deploy hundreds, including air marshals, to border | CNN Politics

My guess is there's some clause in their employment contracts that allow for this kind of temporary re-deployment.

 

Most companies have a vague final bullet on job descriptions that say "the list above isnt' to be viewed as all inclusive and this positions duties can change at the discretion of management."

Most companies do this today. Now how far you can stray from the bullet points becomes pretty vague at that point.