DHS adding public advocate for immigration agency (updated)
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press
Posted: 02/06/2012 10:27:27 PM PST
Updated: 02/06/2012 10:43:59 PM PST
WASHINGTON—The Homeland Security Department has appointed a public advocate to handle complaints and questions about its immigration enforcement policies.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Monday that senior ICE adviser Andrew Lorenzen-Strait will lead the effort.
Lorenzen-Strait's appointment was to be announced Tuesday.
Morton said the position was created to ensure that the public and immigration advocates understand various changes being made within the department and what the changes mean for those immigrants being jailed by immigration authorities or those facing deportation. Lorenzen-Strait will also address concerns about ICE enforcement involving U.S. citizens.
"We have undertaken a significant number of reforms from a policy perspective and we want to make sure they are evenly understood in the public and advocacy communities," Morton said.
Lorenzen-Strait, a lawyer who has been an ICE adviser since 2008, said he sees his new job as being the facilitator "of a two-way dialogue." He will report to Gary Mead, ICE's head of enforcement and removal operations.
In recent months DHS has announced changes in the way authorities determine which illegal immigrants are deported. In June, Morton outlined when agents and immigration prosecutors could use discretion in opting not to pursue a deportation case.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went a step further in August when she announced the review of roughly 300,000 pending deportation cases as part of the department's efforts to focus its resources on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, repeat immigration law offenders and those who pose a public safety or national security threat.
After a review of cases pending in Baltimore and Denver, DHS officials earlier this year recommended closing more than 1,600 deportation cases involving non-criminal illegal immigrants. The review is ongoing in other parts of the country. Morton said Lorenzen-Strait will be responsible for helping the public understand the prosecutorial discretion policy and other changes as well as addressing complaints about the changes.
DHS adding public advocate for immigration agency - San Jose Mercury News
DHS Rebrands Illegal Alien Advocate to Avoid Congressional Ax
August 27, 2013
Judicial Watch
As Congress moves to defund President Obama’s special advocate for illegal immigrants at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the title has been quietly rebranded to protect the position, according to internal agency documents obtained by Judicial Watch this week.
It’s simply part of the president’s well-established pattern of abusing his authority to blow off Congress, especially when it comes to immigration. Early last year the DHS agency charged with finding and deporting illegal immigrants—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—announced that it had named its first-ever “Public Advocate” to deal with the concerns and recommendations of community and advocacy groups.
It was immediately evident that the ICE Public Advocate was essentially created to serve as the lap dog of the increasingly powerful open borders movement. In fact, the advocate (Andrew Lorenzen-Strait) confirms it in a blog post shortly after he was named to the position: “My staff and I will serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs, and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or important issues they would like to raise.” In a Spanish announcement DHS calls Lorenzen-Strait the people’s counsel.
Lorenzen-Strait wasted little time before meeting with leftist groups known to represent the interests of illegal immigrants in a series of “community roundtables.” Participants included El Centro Hispano in Durham North Carolina, the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition in Boston and the International House in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not coincidentally, the Obama administration released thousands of illegal immigrants from detention facilities throughout the U.S. after the meetings.
Some members of Congress became outraged that American taxpayer dollars were being used to fund a Homeland Security position that advocates on behalf of illegal immigrants. A Tennessee congresswoman introduced a widely supported measure to prevent ICE from funding the position of public advocate, reminding that when Congress established DHS it created an advocate position for immigrants in the legal immigration process but specifically declined to create one for illegal immigrants.
The Obama administration responded by simply changing Lorenzen-Strait’s title to one that apparently can’t be defunded by Congress. No press releases were issued announcing the sneaky move but JW has obtained internal DHS correspondence that shows Lorenzen-Strait’s title at ICE was recently changed to Deputy Assistant Director Custody Programs and Community Outreach. The title was included in an agency file associated with the Obama administration’s new directive protecting the illegal immigrant parents of anchor babies from deportation.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...gressional-ax/
Administration rebrands controversial immigration post to skirt funding cut-off
By Barnini Chakraborty
Published September 04, 2013
FoxNews.com
The Obama administration is being accused of trying to pull a fast one on lawmakers by re-branding a controversial immigration job -- a "public advocate" for both legal and illegal immigrants -- after Congress explicitly voted to defund it.
The administration over the summer quietly changed the name of the position, first created in February 2012, from "public advocate" to deputy assistant director of "Custody Programs and Community Outreach." It was a change in name only. The administration kept the person in charge and the job description the same.
By doing so, the White House has been able to keep the post off the congressional chopping block – a move Judicial Watch called “sneaky” in a recent report.
“It’s simply part of the president’s well-established pattern of abusing his authority to blow off Congress, especially when it comes to immigration,” the conservative government watchdog group said.
Andrew Lorenzen-Strait was appointed by Obama as the new public advocate for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February 2012.
The position was created to serve almost like an ombudsman, to help both legal immigrants and illegal immigrants facing removal proceedings. At the time, Obama had come under fire from his base for backpedaling on a campaign promise to enact comprehensive immigration reform. He responded by naming Lorenzen-Strait to the position.
That didn’t sit well with lawmakers like Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., who said the new position wasted taxpayer money by using it to advocate for people breaking the law.
In 2012, Black proposed a House measure to defund the job she called “an ill-conceived lobbyist position.”
“Using taxpayer dollars to fund a position whose primary purpose is to advocate on behalf of individuals who have broken our laws and entered our country illegally is ridiculous and certainly a waste of precious taxpayers’ money,” Black told FoxNews.com. “This is why language was inserted into the Continuing Resolution that was passed through the House and the Senate and signed into law last March that defunds the Public Advocate position.”
The provision, which is part of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, reads: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to provide funding for the position of Public Advocate within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
Black said the administration is "setting a dangerous precedent by breaking the very law he signed, and this kind of abuse of power will only undermine his agenda by destroying his credibility with Congress and the American people."
Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, the union which represents 7,600 ICE officers and agents, has called the public advocate position “nothing but waste, fraud and abuse.”
Others, like Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, disagree.
“The only hope for recourse when enforcement goes bad is to call on the ICE Public Advocate, which seems to me like an essential tool in holding ICE accountable to the public,” Gutierrez told The Washington Times.
ICE defended Lorenzen-Strait’s position and told FoxNews.com that “community outreach remains a necessary function at ICE in order to explain the agency’s mission and to be responsive to the needs of the public.”
ICE also credited him as “a career civil servant who serves as Deputy Assistant Director of Custody Programs and Community Outreach, has helped lead the agency’s public engagement and detention reform portfolio since being hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2008 during the previous Administration.”
Lorenzen-Strait began working for ICE in 2008. Prior to his government job, he worked as a lawyer in Maryland where he received awards for his pro bono work in Prince George’s County.
Calls from FoxNews.com to several immigration advocacy groups were not returned. The National Immigration Forum told FoxNews.com it was too busy working on immigration policy issues to comment.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...hopping-block/
DHS Illegal Alien Advocate Office Still Open, Featured at ICE Employee Event
MAY 08, 2014
Judicial Watch
Nearly a year after Congress defunded President Obama’s special advocate for illegal immigrants at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a source inside the agency tells Judicial Watch the official is still in charge of the office which was quietly rebranded to protect it from the chopping block.
In fact, later this month the illegal alien advocate office—renamed Office of Community Outreach—will participate in a special agency open house at the Washington D.C. headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency charged with finding and deporting illegal aliens. Scheduled for May 16, the event aims to provide ICE employees an opportunity to learn more about ICE programs and activities, according to an announcement provided by JW’s source. More than a dozen booths will feature the agency’s various divisions, including the new Community Outreach and Community Hotline, which used to comprise the Public Advocate office charged with helping illegal aliens.
In 2012 ICE proudly announced its first-ever “Public Advocate” to deal with the concerns and recommendations of community and advocacy groups. It was clear from the start that the ICE Public Advocate was appointed to meet the demands of the increasingly powerful open borders movement. In fact, the advocate (Andrew Lorenzen-Strait) confirms it in a blog post shortly after he was named to the position: “My staff and I will serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs, and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or important issues they would like to raise.” In a Spanish announcement DHS calls Lorenzen-Strait the people’s counsel and a direct line to ICE leaders in expressing concerns about unfavorable measures and decisions related to immigration.
Lorenzen-Strait immediately met with leftist groups known to represent the interests of illegal immigrants in a series of “community roundtables.” Participants included El Centro Hispano in Durham North Carolina, the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition in Boston and the International House in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not coincidentally, the Obama administration released thousands of illegal immigrants from detention facilities throughout the U.S. after the meetings.
Some members of Congress became outraged that American taxpayer dollars were being used to fund a Homeland Security position that advocates on behalf of illegal immigrants. A Tennessee congresswoman introduced a widely supported measure to prevent ICE from funding the position of public advocate, reminding that when Congress established DHS it created an advocate position for immigrants in the legal immigration process but specifically declined to create one for illegal immigrants. The same lawmaker, Diane Black, wrote DHS a letter demanding to know why it continued ignoring the law prohibiting the agency from funding the position of Public Advocate.
Nearly a year later the story has practically fizzled away yet American taxpayers keep funding this outrageous office that works on behalf of illegal immigrants and their supporters in the U.S. Lorenzen-Strait’s title was simply changed to Deputy Assistant Director Custody Programs and Community Outreach, but he continues working on behalf of illegal aliens, according to JW’s inside source. None of the functions of the supposedly defunct Public Advocate office have stopped, the source confirms. Only the name has changed.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...mployee-event/
