Both of these photos appeared on social media yesterday. Can’t the U.S. Border Patrol just use a regular American flag at its events, instead of this “green line” flag? At least when involving children?

I understand that the design is meant to honor fallen agents. But it also portrays Border Patrol as a line of defense protecting “good” people from “others.” Who is implied to be on the other side of that line?

Photo of a child holding a “Green Line” flag in front of the border wall, in a December 19 tweet from @USBPChiefRGV
The director of Mexico’s National Migration Institute, Francisco Garduño, at a meeting with Border Patrol and CBP, apparently in a U.S. school, sitting in front of a student-created poster decorated with children’s painted handprints and a “Green Line” flag emblem. Photo from a (since-possibly deleted) tweet from @INAMI_mx.

Several days after January 6, 2021, I wrote about why I’m uncomfortable with the pro-police “Blue Line” flag, which appeared often that day even as rioters attacked police at the Capitol.