Thread: Republican rips Obama for meeting with illegal immigrants, icing out officer union

Published May 24, 2013
FoxNews.com



A top Republican lawmaker blasted President Obama after he held an Oval Office meeting this week with illegal immigrants, despite having ignored recent requests for a sit-down from the union representing immigration officers.

“The fact that the president and the vice president are hosting illegal immigrants in the White House while constricting citizen tours and refusing to meet with immigration officers says it all,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said in a statement to FoxNews.com Friday. “The White House will not even grant ICE officers a low-level White House meeting but invites illegal immigrants into the Oval Office.”

Obama and Vice President Biden met Tuesday with eight advocates of immigration legislation, which is making its way through Congress. Three of the participants were listed in the White House readout as having “deferred action” -- a term that means they were granted a reprieve, likely via the administration directive last year that allowed some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to avoid deportation and seek work authorization.

Some Republicans are open to ultimately granting permanent legal status to these and other undocumented immigrants. But Sessions, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., both complained that the president is at the same time snubbing the law enforcement officials tasked with enforcing U.S. border policies.

Sessions and Goodlatte sent a letter to Obama Thursday asking why the White House had not responded to repeated requests to meet with representatives from the National ICE Council, the union that represents more than 7,000 customs enforcement officers.

According to the letter, the ICE union has been trying to snag a meeting at the White House for three months to discuss the immigration overhaul, to no avail.

“To be effective any immigration reform bill must heed the warnings from our federal immigration agents,” the lawmakers wrote. “Unfortunately, far from being included in the process, ICE officers have been shut out and have even had their day-to-day operations handcuffed by DHS officials to the point of being unable to carry out their sworn duties.”

The White House refutes the claims, though, and says it has made itself available to multiple immigration enforcement officers over the past few months -- if not the ICE union specifically.

On May 14, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Director of National Drug Control Policy R. Gil Kerlikowske were among administration officials who sat down with law enforcement officers from across the country. During the meeting, Napolitano and Kerlikowske pushed for broad immigration reform and touted the White House’s investments in personnel and technology targeted to keep the borders safe.

The meeting came three months after another Washington gathering with Napolitano and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz. In that meeting, Munoz outlined the principles at the heart of Obama’s immigration proposal which included cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers and creating a pathway to citizenship.

But Chris Crane, president of the ICE union, has made clear dating back to February that he wants his group to be as involved with immigration legislation as other business and advocacy groups have been.

Obama may have other reasons for avoiding a meeting -- members of the union have filed suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, claiming they're being prevented from doing their jobs.

The union has started to actively lobby against the current Senate bill, citing concerns that current gaps in enforcement will only be perpetuated. They were joined this week by the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, which represents 12,000 federal immigration officers at the USCIS.

On Tuesday, a Senate committee passed the so-called Gang of Eight immigration bill. The legislation would still have to be approved by the full Senate.

On the House side, Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor warned Thursday that they would not rubber-stamp the legislation.

“The House remains committed to fixing our broken immigration system, but we will not simply take up and accept the bill that is emerging in the Senate if it passes,” Boehner and Cantor said in a joint statement.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...-border-talks/

May 24, 2013 | 11:00 am | Modified: May 24, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Conn Carroll
The Washington Examiner

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with three illegal immigrants who have been granted deferred action legal status in the Oval Office Tuesday. Meanwhile, Obama still refuses to meet with any border security enforcement officers about any aspect of immigration reform.

“From Justino Mora, Angie Kim and Mehdi Mahraoui, to Diana Colin and Kevin Lee,” a White House blog entry reads, “all of the stories they shared were full of hope and optimism that one day their family members and their broader communities could realize the dream of becoming citizens of a country that has provided them with the opportunity to work hard and to succeed.”

All three immigrants apparently received “deferred action” legal status pursuant to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s June 15, 2012, directive. Under the congressionally unauthorized program, any illegal immigrant under the age of 31 can apply for legal status if they claim they entered the country before their 16th birthday and have been in the country for at least five years. Virtually every immigrant who has applied for deferred action, 99 percent, has been granted legal status.

The union of law enforcement officers charged with protecting our nation’s borders, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, has been highly critical of the program because it makes their jobs almost impossible to perform. But Obama has refused to meet with them on that issue, or the immigration bill currently in the Senate.

On Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., co-signed a letter to Obama asking him to meet with the ICE officers.

“To be effective any immigration reform bill must heed the warnings from our federal immigration agents,” the letter reads. “Unfortunately, far from being included in the process, ICE officers have been shut out and have even had their day-to-day operations handcuffed by DHS officials to the point of being unable to carry out their sworn duties. These brave whistleblowers have been left with no other option but to file a lawsuit in federal court to fight the abuse of power from DHS leadership.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-...rticle/2530464

First article added to Homepage with amended title--

http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=1...-officer-union