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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Lawsuit claims ICE mounted campaign to ‘purge’ senior officials amid immigration chan

    Lawsuit claims ICE mounted campaign to ‘purge’ senior officials amid immigration changes

    By Judson Berger
    Published December 01, 2014
    FoxNews.com

    A longtime federal immigration attorney claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement managers mounted a campaign of "humiliation" and "brutal scape-goating" to purge officials they didn't want, raising concerns from a top GOP lawmaker that the administration was trying to "force compliance" with its controversial policies.

    The attorney, Patricia Vroom, made the allegations in a lawsuit filed last month. The lawsuit is getting renewed attention in the wake of President Obama's executive actions to let potentially millions of illegal immigrants stay in the country and work.

    In the suit, Vroom claimed she was rebuked for her "push-back" on a prior effort to drop cases against illegal immigrants with identity theft convictions, and received a low performance rating at the time.

    "It was part of an orchestrated, coordinated effort ... to purge [the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, OPLA] of senior Chief Counsel so that much younger, much less experienced, and thus much more impressionable individuals who were beholden to them, could be installed in their place," the lawsuit alleges.

    House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., cited the lawsuit in a letter on Monday to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and the acting ICE director. He said the suit shows the administration "bullied career lawyers" to "force compliance" with its policies, and ultimately replace them with "favored individuals."

    He asked for more information, and raised concerns that some of the individuals cited in the suit will now be carrying out the president's executive orders shielding more illegal immigrants from deportation.

    "What is troubling is that several of the people named in the complaint are tasked with enforcing our immigration laws and implementing the President's November 20, 2014, announcement which further curtails immigration enforcement," Goodlatte said in a statement on Monday.

    An ICE official said in an email on Monday that leadership "take these allegations seriously and when founded will always take the appropriate disciplinary action."

    The official said: "We are reviewing the allegations in the complaint, which largely refer to events from 2012 and 2013 concerning workplace environment and various personnel decisions taken by key officials, some of whom have since left the Department."

    The lawsuit names Johnson as the defendant and alleges the department retaliated against Vroom over prior complaints she made, and claims age and sex discrimination. The plaintiff is 59, has been at ICE and its predecessor agency for 26 years, and currently is chief counsel at the OPLA in Phoenix.

    Beyond the discrimination claims, though, the suit lays out what it describes as a "relentless" effort by office managers to target senior attorneys for "harassment, reassignment of duties to much less desirable ones, public humiliation, and brutal scape-goating" to ultimately get rid of them.

    The lawsuit even claims this was boiled down to a "3-point plan":

    "1) threaten to move their position; 2) find out what they liked to do and take it all away, and find out what they did not like to do and load them up with it; and 3) stay on them constantly, never giving them a moment's peace."

    Vroom alleges she ultimately became a target of this effort, and that one of the factors was a push to "look favorably for prosecutorial discretion" for low-level identity theft cases in Arizona -- in other words, be lenient toward illegal immigrants with these convictions.

    "Prosecutorial discretion" is the term for an Obama administration effort to prioritize serious criminals for deportation and let other lower-level cases slide. The lawsuit claims the focus on identify theft cases was "significant," and Vroom often sought "clarification" on the instructions.

    But Vroom, in turn, was accused of giving "push-back," according to the suit.

    The suit also describes one discussion in September of this year when Jim Stolley, director of field legal operations, was talking with agency attorneys about "prosecutorial discretion" for "low-level" offenders including old DUI convictions. When some attorneys challenged Stolley, he allegedly said, "We don't give a s--- about that. Let it go."

    Another top official criticized in the suit is Principal Legal Advisor Peter Vincent, who left the agency last month.

    The lawsuit claims that Vroom's performance rating shot up last month, after she retained legal counsel.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...ior-officials/
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    This is outstanding! Way to go Patricia Vroom for pushing back and ultimately filing this lawsuit. Everyone in her position needs to stand up and file a separate suit and "load 'em up" with lawsuits that this agency, Johnson and Obama have no defense against. Their actions against these civil servants standing up for the law and the American people are despicable and must be punished. What has happened to ICE and I'm sure other agencies as well can not fly in the United States.
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

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    Action needed here!!!! LETS ROLL!

    http://www.alipac.us/f8/stop-these-g...ictate-315410/

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    Allegations of ICE Corruption Gain Traction

    by Kristin Tate 2 Dec 2014, 4:57 AM PDT

    Allegations that Obama Administration officials pressured prosecutors to release convicted criminal illegal aliens appears to be gaining traction. The House Judiciary Chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), wrote a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, demanding a response to the allegations.

    Goodlatte pointed out that the complaint lays out, "in explicit detail," how Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) senior management "destroyed careers to force compliance with the Obama Administration's anti-immigration law enforcement policies, and put in their place favored individuals."

    Breitbart News' Jonathan Strong broke the news of the lawsuit. Patricia M. Vroom, a career prosecutor at ICE, said in her filing that she was instructed to drop prosecutions against illegal aliens who had previously been convicted of DUI. ICE official Jim Stolley allegedly told her, "We don't give a shit about that. Let it go."

    "If the allegations in the complaint are true," Goodlatte wrote to Johnson, "I am deeply concerned that several of the people named in the complaint are tasked with enforcing our immigration laws and implementing the President's November 20, 2014, announcement which further curtails immigration enforcement."

    Goodlatte asked if disciplinary action had been taken against the ICE officials named in the lawsuit.

    He continued, "The complaint alleges that personnel were instructed to ignore the law they were sworn to uphold and routinely release and dismiss cases for entire classes of criminal aliens, including certain convicted felons, drunk drivers, DACA applicants, unlawful juveniles apprehended during the border surge, aliens convicted of identity theft, and aliens who made false claims to citizenship in order to vote.

    The complaint ultimately raises questions about the Obama Administration's "priorities," Goodlatte wrote.

    Goodlatte requested that Johnson answer his questions -- he laid out eight of them -- no later than December 22.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-T...-Gain-Traction
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