Barron Trump, the youngest child of Donald Trump, will embark on one of the first great adventures of adult life this fall: moving away to college.
The 18-year-old, who recently graduated from the prestigious Oxbridge Academy in Florida, will study in New York, his father revealed this week. The exact university is still unknown, but NYU, Columbia and Cornell are all possible candidates.
Barron now joins a long line of young adults who go to school carrying their parents’ presidential legacy on their shoulders, while Secret Service agents watch their every move.
Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who protected George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, along with their families, explained the challenges of protecting teenagers. The Independent.
He said the goal of Secret Service agents is to “include as little disruption as possible to the college experience while providing the best possible security environment.”
Eckloff is no stranger to the ins and outs of presidential children, having worked with the Bush twins, Sasha and Malia Obama, all of the Trump children, and many of the Trump grandchildren. Every child and grandchild of a current president receives Secret Service protection, Eckloff explained.
While the children of former presidents are not guaranteed a deployment after they turn 16, Barron is currently receiving protection, the Secret Service confirmed in a statement to The Independent.
Eckloff tells The Independent that Barron will be attending college when social media poses a greater threat than ever — both to his safety and his privacy.
How do police officers protect young adults in the age of social media?
People who record video of a presidential child and then post it on TikTok or Instagram for the world to see are part of the new security reality.
The secret service must keep an eye on things [social media],” Eckloff said. “Say the president’s kid is at a party and someone tweets his picture. Now his location is broadcast on social media and he could be targeted. That could put everyone at risk.”
This is true for children of current and former presidents. In 2017, Harvard University students went into a social media frenzy when Malia Obama—Obama’s eldest daughter—arrived on campus.
Social media users quickly shared photos of the then 19-year-old woman as she moved in, sharing her location and movements with the rest of the world.
“The overall threat environment that we face in the 21st century is greater than ever,” Eckloff said. “People’s locations and activities tend to be more publicly known, and social media is more reactive.”
Not only can this be dangerous for the students, but it can also expose them to strict scrutiny.
In 2016, Malia Obama was all over the tabloids after she was photographed smoking at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. (At her next festival appearance, Malia wore a Harvard hat, her prospective college, and a T-shirt with a homemade slogan “smoking kills.”)
Meanwhile, her younger sister Sasha Obama, then just 15, was photographed working her summer job as a waitress on Martha’s Vineyard.
This problem even predates the advent of social media. When Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of President Bill Clinton, started at Stanford University in 1997, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton wrote a public address in the Los Angeles Times asking for the privacy of the 17-year-old to be respected.
“I can’t imagine ever having any of those private experiences, all of which involve being interrupted by the glare of cameras — and not because of anything I was or did, but because of what my parents were doing,” Clinton wrote.
Presidential children tend to maintain a high level of privacy while they’re still in elementary and middle school. That’s because many of them attend prestigious, expensive private schools—and are surrounded by others who understand the need for privacy, especially on the Internet.
“They’re used to rich kids,” Eckloff explained. “So there’s more discretion to protect people’s anonymity.”
A university means thousands of extra students and huge campuses to navigate, plus you have more access to the masses if the university is in a metropolis like New York City.
How do Secret Service agents navigate campus life?
The Secret Service’s protection of presidential children must be far more discreet than that of the Commander-in-Chief. Agents dress in plain clothes and rely on remote technology — like cameras and alarms — to keep the student safe.
“Protective surveillance is part of that. That means being close, watching everything, and waiting to react,” Eckloff explains.
A college campus is an unpredictable environment, especially if they are located in busy urban areas. Protecting students also becomes more complicated when they go out with friends or start dating someone.
That’s why Secret Service agents must be able to adapt and “plan to fail,” Eckloff explains.
“Planning to fail is where the Secret Service wins,” he said. “They have contingency plans in place for when things go wrong.”
Dorm living is a good example. Officers are usually in the dorm building with students at all times. However, they cannot prepare for every possible scenario or fully secure buildings that can house hundreds of students who are also studying, underage drinking, and general chaos at the university.
“They have to be innovative in how they achieve the protection,” Eckloff said. “You can’t protect the entire dormitory, that’s just not realistic.”
Ultimately, Eckloff explains, Secret Service agents want to protect the student and disrupt his life as little as possible.
“A lot of kids are experiencing independent living for the first time, and Secret Service can hinder that,” he continued. “They’re sensitive to it, but they have a job, and it’s critical.”
“I think you would rather have your college experience affected a little than be kidnapped.”