Thread: ICE union resists immigration reform

1:29 PM on 02/05/2013
Ned Resnikoff
msnbc


(In this March 30, 2012 photo, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents take a suspect into custody as part of a nationwide immigration sweep in Chula Vista, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull))

The labor movement at large might be lining up behind the Democrats’ push for immigration reform, but at least one union isn’t happy about it: the National ICE Council 118, which represents agents in the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement wing, is demanding broader latitude to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.

In testimony delivered to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Council 118 president Chris Crane laid out the agency’s stark demands for broader enforcement authority. “ICE is now guided in large part by the influences of powerful special interest groups that advocate on behalf of illegal aliens,” he said. “These influences have in large part eroded the order, stability and effectiveness of the agency, creating confusion among all ICE employees.”

The result, suggested Crane, was widespread “low morale” among ICE agents, which he implied may have contributed to “the tragic shooting in a Los Angeles ICE office last year, in which an ICE Agent shot his own supervisor and was himself shot and killed by another ICE employee.”

Crane highlighted limited authority to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants as one of the biggest contributors to low morale. In particular, he singled out the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants tens of thousands of young immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation.

Said Crane, “News has spread quickly through illegal alien populations within jails and communities that immigration agents have been instructed by the agency not to investigate illegal aliens who claim protections from immigration arrest under DACA.” Additionally, he bemoaned the fact that current policy prohibits ICE from prosecuting individuals for illegal entry or overstaying a visa unless they had also been convicted for criminal misdemeanors.

The ICE union head’s testimony earned a sharp rebuke from Sarah Uribe, the national campaign coordinator for the National Day Labor Organizing Network.

“The mandate for reform is to protect families that belong together from being separated by ICE’s wrongful arrests and deportations,” she told MSNBC Tuesday. “ICE is a rogue agency whose leadership has a history of lying to the public and has repeatedly violated even the President’s stated priorities.”

Council 118′s campaign against immigration reform extends beyond giving congressional testimony. Last August, Crane and nine other ICE officials filed a lawsuit intended to block DACA. And though the ICE union is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor federation, Crane has publicly repudiated AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka’s pro-reform stance.

“With most of the nation’s immigration enforcement experts at his fingertips, to include immigration officers, agents and attorneys, Trumka has refused our union input on comprehensive immigration reform,” said Crane in a statement last week.

Though the American labor movement has not always had a comfortable relationship with immigrants, Trumka and other labor leaders have become increasingly enthusiastic about immigration reform over the years. On Thursday, Trumka will discuss the AFL-CIO’s plans for a nationwide campaign on behalf of reform and a road map to citizenship.

ICE union resists immigration reform

February 5, 2013 | 5:51 pm
Joel Gehrke
The Washington Examiner



President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security care more about “special interests” in the Democratic campaign base than the lives of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the ICE union boss told Congress today.

“Death or serious injury to ICE officers and agents appears more acceptable to ICE, DHS, and Administration leadership, than the public complaints that would be lodged by special interest groups representing illegal aliens,” Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement 118, told the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon.

Crane based that statement on the way government policies handcuff the ICE officers charged with enforcing immigration laws, such as the policy that bans using tasers on illegal immigrants even though law enforcement is authorized to use them on U.S. citizens in the course of an arrest.” ICE will not approve this equipment for political reasons,” Crane, a former United States Marine, explained.

Obama’s decision to implement the DREAM Act without congressional approval — “deferred action for childhood arrivals” (DACA) – has made it almost impossible to enforce the law, he also explained.

“ICE immigration agents have been instructed to accept the illegal alien’s claim as to whether he or she graduated or is attending high school or college or otherwise qualifies for DACA,” Crane said, noting that ICE agents have heard illegal immigrants coaching each other on how to lie about their qualification for DACA privileges.

The ICE union members agreed in 2010 that they have “no confidence” in the ability of the people Obama has appointed to run the agency.

Immigration law enforcement union boss: Obama doesn

February 8, 2013
Judicial Watch

Special interest groups that advocate on behalf of illegal aliens are dictating immigration enforcement in the U.S. and prohibiting federal agents from implementing many of the laws enacted by Congress.

The shocking revelation came this week during congressional testimony from a veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who serves as president of the union that represents ICE officers, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council. Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee, Chris Crane told lawmakers that morale is an all-time low in the agency of about 20,000.

“ICE is now guided in large part by the influences of powerful special interest groups that advocate on behalf of illegal aliens,” Crane said. “These influences have in large part eroded the order, stability and effectiveness of the agency, creating confusion among all ICE employees. For the last four years it has been a roller coaster for ICE officers with regard to who they can or cannot arrest and which federal laws they will be permitted to enforce.”

He offered a number of examples from field offices throughout the nation in which agents were ordered not to arrest illegal immigrants, including those with multiple convictions for traffic related offenses. In fact, the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has directed agents not to apprehend illegal aliens with “insignificant” criminal records. “Important to note, no training or list of insignificant misdemeanor offenses was ever provided to ICE employees,” Crane said.

Agents who fail to comply with the new mandate—issued verbally so that there is no written record—face disciplinary action, Crane told lawmakers. This essentially prohibits ICE officers from making street arrests, restricting them to targets that have been preapproved in writing through a lengthy authorization process.

The new Obama administration policies conflict with the way the government trains ICE officers, Crane points out. “As a result, officers are confused and unsure about the new policies and often find themselves facing disciplinary action for following the law and their academy training instead of the confusing and highly misunderstood and ever changing new policies.”

He also told the congressional panel that open borders groups and the media unfairly demonize the agency simply for doing its job. “ICE employees represent the full spectrum of races and religions that make up our great country,” Crane said, stressing that many at the agency are “themselves the sons and daughters of immigrants or grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants.” However, they believe in law enforcement and the rule of law, he added.

Over the summer Crane and a Border Patrol official participated in a U.S. Senate press conference to reveal that the Obama administration has ordered federal immigration officers to release illegal aliens arrested for violent crimes as long as they claim to be “dreamers” who came to the U.S. as children. Under a controversial plan enacted by the president over the summer, nearly 1 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30 will be spared deportation and have a chance at U.S. citizenship.

ICE: Open Border Groups Dictate U.S. Immigration Enforcement | Judicial Watch