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Union resistance slows immigrant crime initiative

This might explain the slow implementation of the 'Morton memo' nationwide.

Quote:

The federal agency in charge of deportations is conducting a far-reaching training course to push immigration enforcement officers and prosecutors nationwide to focus their efforts on removing immigrants convicted of crimes.

The training course is the clearest sign yet that administration officials want to transform the way immigration officers work, asking them to make nuanced decisions to speed deportations of high-risk offenders while halting those of illegal immigrants with clean records and strong ties to the country. The policy is President Obama's most ambitious immigration initiative before the November elections, senior administration officials said.

But in a new sign of the deep dissension over immigration, the union representing 7,000 deportation officers of the agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has not allowed its members to participate in the training. Without the formal consent of the union, the administration's strategy could be significantly slowed for months in labor negotiations.
Union cites politics

Chris Crane, president of the union, the National ICE Council, has fiercely criticized the strategy, saying it amounts to orders from ICE officials for agents not to enforce the law. In congressional testimony, Crane accused the administration of tailoring its enforcement practices to win support from immigrant communities for Obama's re-election.

"Law enforcement and public safety have taken a back seat to attempts to satisfy immigrant advocacy groups," Crane told a House Judiciary subcommittee in October.

Crane has channeled his criticisms primarily through Republican leaders in Congress, working with Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Calling the administration's plan "back-door amnesty," Smith said recently that evidence Crane presented to the committee showed that directives from ICE officials for agents to use discretion in enforcement decisions had "undermined the agency's credibility and mission."

Department of Homeland Security officials say the training seminar, although only half a day, is central to bringing all ICE officers on board for an effort they say will significantly raise the numbers of convicted criminals among deportees and is expected to lead in coming months to unprecedented suspensions of deportations of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.
Missing training goals

Virtually all ICE commanding officers and prosecutors have gone through the training course and are working on the new strategy, Homeland Security Department officials said. But because of the silence from the ICE Council, a local of the American Federation of Government Employees, the officials will miss their Friday goal for completing the nationwide training blitz, which began in November.

The National ICE Council faces a deadline late this month to say whether it will demand negotiations over the training, the officials said. Crane did not respond to repeated e-mail requests over several months for comment.

It is not clear how deeply the union's resistance reaches into ICE ranks. ICE officials say many field agents have been drawn to the professional appeal of the high-profile anticrime operations against foreign street gangs, drug dealers and sex offenders that the agency is conducting ever more frequently.

Re: Union resistance slows immigrant crime initiative

They have a union?
What about serving their nation?

I understand that unions at private business help protect workers interests, but employees who are public servants should not be allowed to unionize.

Re: Union resistance slows immigrant crime initiative

The policy is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative before the November elections, senior administration officials said.

"How about the migrant who has been living here since he crossed the Southwest border illegally in 1996? He failed to appear for a crucial immigration court hearing back then. But he has no criminal record, and he coaches soccer at the school where his twin daughters, both citizens, are enrolled.

Answer: This case, too, should be closed

"Mr. Crane told Congress that the Morton directives presented enforcement agents with “a roller coaster of arrest authority that has changed from month to month, week to week and at times from day to day.” He said some agents were afraid to make any arrests."

I find the following interesting:

The article omits the date the NYTimes reporter sat thru the "abbreviated" training that ICE officers were attending. Forgive me, but this was intentionally allowed so print could circulate ahead of the President's State of the Union address. What exactly is he going to say regarding immigration reform? Prosecutorial discretion and the recent proposed regulation regarding waivers for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are NOT new. But, far more importantly, it's a new year and it's still not concrete policy. The waiver regulation change will be pending for many months and it's not expected to take effect until the end of the year.

Second, on prosecutorial discretion, the example given during the training about the immigrant who never attended his immigration hearing; doesn't that make him a fugitive with a final order? Didn't they say that no matter what equities someone had, they were going after so-called "fugitives" because they "ignore" the order to leave? And how do they plan to address all the final orders that have been issued by the current administration to low-priority cases? I personally have knowledge of at least five immigration cases involving long-time undocumented residents to whom Obama's DOJ wrote that asking to remain in the country until passage of some sort of immigration relief was "ridiculous" as they seemed "oblivious to the fact that he/she is an 'illegal' alien to whom the current laws should apply, not some speculative future rule". This was actually written in response to litigation to the 9th circuit court of appeals in 2010; and they summarily affirmed. So THIS is why they haven't published guidelines involving final orders for low-priority individuals. How do you backtrack after the circuit court affirmed your position? What a stupid thing to do. This affects cases all over the West Coast; the regions with the most mixed-status families, heavy with Hispanic population and mostly a blue, Democratic region. And these are people with absolutely zero criminal conduct. Not even a parking ticket.

So, the complain from the ground officers that the policy seemed to shift on a daily,weekly and monthly basis depending on political winds is true. Poor planning and poor leadership. A plan to protect long-time undocumented residents from removal with no criminal records, should have been planned and put into place three years ago.