Can Mad Men spruce up border patrol’s image?

SAN DIEGO — CBP needs PR. ASAP.

Tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s barbaric policy of taking migrant children from their parents to scare off future refugees from coming here, the reputation of Customs and Border Protection has been dragged through the mud.

The entity responsible for CBP’s image problems is not the media or even the White House but — wait for it — CBP itself. The agency has been sloppy in implementing the family-separation policy and ham-handed in dealing with the human beings that the policy impacts.

Immigration officers are cops, not social workers. But is it too much to ask that cops have a dash of social consciousness?

The mess has gotten so bad that the agency is now paying big bucks to Ogilvy — a legendary New York Citybased advertising, marketing and public relations company — to clean it up. Forking over $12 million for one year’s work, CBP wants the firm to craft a kinder and gentler image.

But can Mad Men overcome the madness on the U.S.-Mexico border?

According to media reports, many on Ogilvy’s staff are disgusted by their new client. Many would probably sooner polish the public image of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Who can blame them? Take it from the son of a retired cop, CBP is a disgrace to the policing profession. Too many of its officers are brutes who get their kicks from bullying the powerless.

And since most of the families and kids being mistreated have brown skin and hail from Central America — as opposed to having white skin and hailing from, say, Norway — it’s a short walk to accusations of racism.

So what if about half of the CBP workforce is Latino? Did someone tell you that Latinos can’t be racist toward one another? As a Latino, I’d say you were misinformed.

These lawmen became outlaws the minute they broke apart refugee families, essentially kidnapped people’s children, and then proceeded to provide these kids with a level of care and supervision that falls short of what your dog gets when you put him in a kennel so you can go on vacation.

The minute government agents snatch your kid, they become responsible for that kid. It’s their job to make sure the child has enough food, water and medicine. It’s their job to make sure they have clean clothes, a comfortable place to sleep, and a safe environment. If a government agency doesn’t want to do all that — or in the case of CBP, if it is not designed and equipped to do all that — then it should not snatch the kids in the first place.

In legalese, CBP is acting in loco parentis — in lieu of the parent. Yet, if you’ve been even halfway paying attention to the news over the last several months, you know that CBP is just acting loco.

Infants, toddlers and children are housed in cages, and — according to eyewitness accounts from pediatricians and others — they often don’t have enough food or water. The younger ones have to rely on teenagers who are jailed with them for care and supervision. Their parents are caged separately in other facilities, and many of them are held long past the maximum number of days that someone can be held — in violation of CBP’s own regulations.

Recently, in Texas, Francisco Erwin Galicia was held by CBP — and its equally ugly stepsister, Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for three weeks. He was treated so badly that he considered signing the paperwork so he could “self-deport.” He’s a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas, Texas.

There have been accusations of sexual assault in a detention facility in Yuma, Arizona. A 15-year-old migrant girl from Honduras claims that a CBP officer put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear, and groped her during a pat down.

At least six children have died in CBP custody, though that number could be much higher.

It’s not easy to recruit new hires, or wrangle funding from Congress, when you’re seen by some as a bunch of racist child abusers who neglect kids to the point where they die on your watch. So that’s where Ogilvy comes in with its radical makeover.

Good luck, folks. You’re marketers, not magicians. You have probably helped other clients sell soap. Good. It’ll come in handy. Because before this job is over, you’re going to need to take lots and lots of showers.