Thread: The ICE Shell Game

JANUARY 4, 2014 4:00 AM
The ICE Shell Game
How the Obama crew has gotten around a reform in the enforcement of immigration law
By Diane Black

When it comes to enacting President Obama’s second-term agenda, nothing stands in the way more than his own administration. By serially flouting our nation’s laws, this administration has ignored its constitutional duties and completely discredited itself, losing good will along the way from members of Congress.

While this administration’s lawlessness has been most widely noticed in President Obama’s implementation of Obamacare, it applies to areas far beyond health care.

For instance, in February of 2012, the Obama administration announced the creation of a “public advocate” position within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). This person served as a point of contact for illegal and criminal immigrants in deportation proceedings as well as for illegal-alien advocacy and community groups. Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, the union that represents the 7,600 ICE officers and agents, has called the public-advocate position “nothing but waste, fraud, and abuse.”

At a time when our country is $17 trillion in debt, the last thing we should be doing is using taxpayer dollars to fund a position whose primary purpose is to advocate on behalf of individuals who have entered our country illegally and in some cases broken other laws as well. This is why in the summer of 2012 I introduced an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill to defund this public-advocate position; it is why my amendment was passed unopposed by voice vote in the House; and ultimately it is why language to defund the position was passed by the Senate and included in the final Continuing Resolution that President Obama signed into law on March 26, 2013.

But last August we learned, thanks to information obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch, that the “most transparent administration in history” had quietly changed the title of the position to avoid complying with the very law the president signed. The administration changed the title of “public advocate” to “deputy assistant director of custody programs and community outreach.” It was a change in name only: The administration kept the same person in the position and made no changes to the job itself.

My office immediately began seeking an explanation from ICE, only to be repeatedly stonewalled. In September, I sent a letter to the acting director of ICE, John Sandweg, demanding answers about these reports that ICE has ignored current law by not abolishing the position of public advocate. After failing to receive a timely response, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, asking that the agency turn over a series of documents related to the public-advocate position.

It is an outrage that federal bureaucrats think they can simply skirt the law, in essence ignoring the will of the people by playing a shell game and hiding ICE activities with a mere title change. To fight back, I have now introduced H.R. 3732, the Immigration Compliance Enforcement (ICE) Act. This straightforward, good-government legislation prohibits federal money from being used to fund any position that performs the exact or “substantially the same” functions as the former “public advocate” or the “deputy assistant director of custody programs and community outreach.” The Obama administration must be held accountable and required to follow the spirit of the law, not just the letter.

Unfortunately for the president, he loses all credibility with lawmakers when he can’t be trusted to execute the very laws he signs. This not only creates the gridlock we see in Washington, but also undermines President Obama’s ability to advance his own agenda.

— Diane Black (R.) represents Tennessee’s 6th congressional district in the House of Representatives.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...me-diane-black

Unfortunately for the president, he loses all credibility with lawmakers when he can’t be trusted to execute the very laws he signs. This not only creates the gridlock we see in Washington, but also undermines President Obama’s ability to advance his own agenda.

Excellent conclusion!

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Wednesday, January 8, 2014


Rep. Diane Black

Saying the Obama administration is ignoring a direct order from Congress, a congresswoman has introduced legislation that would — once again — eliminate the Obama administration’s official immigration-rights advocacy office.

Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican, thought she’d nixed the office last year when Congress passed a spending bill defunding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Public Advocate.

But the Obama administration renamed the office, keeping the same director and personnel under a new title of Community Outreach.

“It is an outrage that federal bureaucrats think they can simply skirt the law, in essence ignoring the will of the people, by playing a shell game and hiding ICE employees and activities with a mere title change,” Mrs. Black said in a statement announcing her bill.

The office was created with fanfare in 2012, at a time when President Obama was seeking re-election, looking to shore up support among Hispanics, and trying to respond to concerns he’d been overzealous in his detention and deportation of illegal immigrants.

In a blog cross-posted on both the Homeland Security and White House web pages, Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, the new director, said he would be a voice for “the stakeholder community.” Immigrant-rights advocates hoped he would provide another avenue for them to argue for the release of immigrants the administration was trying to deport.

But Congress was less than pleased. In a spending bill last year, lawmakers voted to strip out money for the position — the congressional equivalent of a veto over the executive branch.

ICE countered by shifting the position to Community Outreach.

The office didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment, but an ICE official, who requested anonymity, offered some details of the workload, saying that since ICE established its helpline in September 2012 it has resolved more than 43,000 calls, and in 2013 it responded to more than 2,100 email inquiries.

“All major law enforcement agencies recognize the importance of community engagement and ICE is no different,” the official said. “Community engagement promotes public safety by bringing law enforcement, concerned citizens, NGOs, the business community and others together to engage in dialogue, express concerns, and find ways to mutually support each other and resolve conflict.”

The official did not say why ICE rearranged the office rather than shutting it down after Congress’s actions.

Some immigrant-rights groups and members of Congress have reported good experiences with the advocacy office, but others have had mixed reactions.

“It’s a joke. The whole thing’s a joke,” said Ralph Isenberg, who runs the Isenberg Center for Immigration Empowerment in Dallas, which works to bring tough cases to the attention of officials and just last month won the release of two women the government had designated for deportation.

He has regularly butted heads with the public advocate, and said he is working on a lawsuit against the agency for trying to prevent him from filing forms on behalf of some immigrants.

“The public advocate’s office has put a special set of procedures in place just for my organization that basically makes it impossible for me to communicate cases that we come across in Dallas,” Mr. Isenberg said.

Christina Fialho, co-executive director of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), said ICE officials and their detention policies are in need of accountability and oversight.

Her organization has worked with ICE as part of a project to make it easier for family and friends to visit immigrants who are being detained while in deportation proceedings.

After three of her visitation programs were canceled, she tried to find out what happened. She was told the decision came from national headquarters, so she called the public advocate’s office, which confirmed that the programs were canceled after she wrote a blog post critical of ICE’s policies.

“While I’m certainly critical of ICE’s office of the public advocate, it’s really the only office that provides advocates on both sides of the debate a window into this massive agency, and therefore some accountability,” she said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-immigration-/