The President says he is keeping us safe. But at what cost?

As a caravan of migrants is proceeding northward through Mexico, the President has committed to sending at least 5,000, and as many as 15,000, active duty troops to the border. The President's rationale for doing so has been that the caravan represents a safety threat to the United States, on account of the "bad people" or even unspecified "Middle Easterners" in the group.

This rhetoric, with which we have now become too familiar, isn't just racial and ethnic dog whistling. The border effort, according to the Washington Post citing Pentagon figures, could (combined with the cost of National Guard forces who have been at the border since April) cost more than $200 million.

Obviously, the administration is playing up the threat at the border to stoke racial fears in advance of Election Day. Unfortunately, their doing so is going to lead to a massive squandering of the nation's funds. It is the latest example of how the administration's approach to public safety -- divide first; ask questions about the money later -- is motivating and justifying policy decisions that have had disastrous consequences.

Certainly, it is in our interest as a nation of laws to have a coherent means of addressing a potential influx of individuals at the border, including the fair and speedy processing of all asylum claims. However, sending thousands of troops to the border in response to a group, traveling on foot and currently hundreds of miles from the border who are estimated not to arrive until December, is a foolish waste of resources and military focus.

Despite the President's repeated saber-rattling suggestion that these troops will be used to encounter or apprehend migrants, their role will be quite limited. Unless he declares martial law, there is little the troops are lawfully permitted do beyond providing logistical support.

What this means is that a staggering sum will be spent diverting a force at least as large as our presence in Iraq from their normal national security duties so they can pitch tents and set up metal detectors.

There is no clearer instance of how the current administration's divisiveness has led to actual policy failures than in its approach to fighting domestic terrorism -- a failure is all too vivid following the deadliest attack ever on Jews on American soil in Pittsburgh, at the hands of a domestic terrorist.

From its first days, the Trump administration has diverted resources away from law enforcement programs devoted to countering home-grown terrorism. In 2014, the Obama administration launched an anti-terrorism initiative, called Countering Violent Extremism, which sought in part to prevent individuals from joining "violent extremist" groups by engaging community and religious leaders. While the notion underlying CVE was noble, civil rights groups responded with significant criticism of it for profiling and collecting intelligence on Muslims (despite statements that the program was never intended to do so). Rather than learn from the Obama administration's mistakes, the Trump administration chose to instead double down on profiling with its CVE efforts.

Soon after Inauguration Day, the administration floated plans to rename the CVE program "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," not hiding its noxious desire to profile and target Muslims. Likewise, the Trump Department of Homeland Security canceled grants approved during the Obama administration devoted to countering home-grown terrorism. These grants helped people leave white supremacist groups and prevented individuals from joining such groups in the first place. The administration did not request funding for any other similar ones.

Now, in the wake of Pittsburgh, and despite FBI data indicating an overall rise in hate crimes -- particularly against Muslims and Jews -- the administration still will not continue grant programs aimed at domestic terror. DHS just this week changed its website to remove references that it might.

The administration has also let the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, a valuable task force that coordinated counterterror efforts between federal, state, and local law enforcement, wither. The Department of Justice created the program after the Oklahoma City bombing, put it on hold following 9/11 (given a shift to confronting foreign threats), and revived it in the wake of a 2014 shooting by an avowed neo-Nazi that killed three people in Kansas. Layering unfounded fears from Republicans in Congress that the DTEC would lead to bias against conservatives with its own fixation on Muslims, it appears that the Trump administration has not directed resources to the DTEC, thus guaranteeing its near-total irrelevance.

Given that the threats of white nationalist and neo-Nazi violence remain all too real, it's mind-boggling that this administration has let such valuable programs expire. While letting programs expire technically saves money, untold social costs flow from an administration's obsessing about Muslims and Hispanic people, while turning a blind eye to neo-Nazis and white supremacist terrorists.

Elections have consequences, and public officials are empowered to make the decisions they think best for the future of the country. This said, public safety is one of the rare areas in government in which plenty of resources are already there; the current administration is simply using them poorly. Worse, the ways in which they are spending money are more symbolic acts meant to drive anger, rather than practical ones that could actually make us safer.

At a recent briefing, when asked how to prevent another Pittsburgh, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "If anybody knows the answer, I think certainly this administration would be all ears."

The answer is clear. The administration just chooses not to see it. With Election Day upon us, perhaps a new Congress could help hold them accountable.

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