After President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders to reduce crime on his first day in office, one expert with nearly three decades of law enforcement experience said the days of police vilification are over.
“Since Trump has returned to office, it has really been, it’s been a burden lifted for law enforcement,” Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (Ret.) told Fox News Digital. “And I think that this vilification of law enforcement is going to fade because politicians at the highest level are not going to go along with it anymore.”
Smith is a 29-year law enforcement veteran and spokesperson for the National Police Association. She now trains police officers across the country, and speaks with rank-and-file officers regularly.
On day one, Trump signed the Executive Order on Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, which eliminated dozens of Biden-era executive orders. One of those Biden-era orders was called Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety.
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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That order promoted “alternatives to arrest or incarceration,” banned local and state authorities from obtaining surplus federal government weapons and other law enforcement equipment, and cracked down on local law enforcement’s ability to use force in making arrests.
National Police Association spokesperson Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith said Trump’s executive orders lifted a burden on police officers. (Fox News)
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Smith noted that now, law enforcement optimism is as high as it has been since what she called the “war on cops,” which she said began when Barack Obama was president and when Joe Biden was his vice president.
She said that pro-police and law and order messaging is refreshing for the law enforcement community, and may even attract new recruits to the profession.
“And what that is going to do, albeit slowly, is help us recover from these last four years of police officers retiring early, or fleeing places like New York and Chicago and LA and going to places like Florida and Arizona,” she said. “And I think we’ll start to see young people interested in the profession again.”
Trump also enacted an executive order on his first day back in office called the Executive Order on Protecting the American People Against Invasion, meant to “combat cross-border crime in our communities, including drug and gang crime as well as human trafficking and smuggling,” according to the National Association for Police Officers.
Immigrants are photographed at a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023 in Lukeville, Arizona. (John Moore/Getty Images)
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“The executive order also promotes… agreements with states and localities to grant state and local law enforcement officers the necessary resources and latitude to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, and gang and drug activity by criminal aliens,” NAPO said.
Smith, an Arizona resident, also regularly communicates with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
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“We have a lot of interaction with border patrol,” she said. “The morale in the border patrol here in southern Arizona… it’s exploded. You see those guys and gals out and about, and they’re so happy because they get to do their jobs. They’re just happy to be back to work.”
CBP Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs Hilton Beckham told Fox News Digital that the agency is no longer hamstrung and is back to working at full force.
“Change starts with leadership. Under a president who restores authority to law enforcement and backs the men and women on the frontlines, we’re seeing a complete 180 at the border,” she said.
“Historic lows in illegal crossings — numbers even veteran agents haven’t seen — and an unprecedented whole-of-government collaboration are delivering real results. The CBP mission never changed, but now we have the ability to enforce it fully: holding lawbreakers accountable, restoring order, and putting Americans first.”
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