Amnesty by Policy

Curtis Coleman, Contributing Author: A couple of weeks ago, a draft memo surfaced from the bowels of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) division of the Department of Homeland Security proposing ways to circumvent federal law to allow illegal immigrants to avoid deportation and, in some cases, to even be granted permanent resident status.  “We will not comment on notional, pre-decisional memos,” the USCIS responded in a prepared statement. “Nobody should mistake deliberation and exchange of ideas for final decisions.”

The Country’s front line immigration agents seem to disagree that the USCIS proposals were only internal ruminations. According to a statement from members of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, “acting on behalf of approximately 7,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and employees from the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO),” the Agency is already circumventing existing law and practicing amnesty by policy.

In their public statement, these federal immigration officers and employees claimed that ICE Director John Morton and Assistant Director Phyllis Coven “have abandoned the Agency’s core mission of enforcing United States Immigration laws and providing for public safety, and have instead directed their attention to campaigning for programs and policies related to amnesty.”

Their statement listed these grievances with the Administration’s policies:

1. “Senior ICE leadership dedicates more time to campaign for immigration reforms aimed at large scale amnesty legislation, than advising the American people and Federal lawmakers on the severity of the illegal immigration problem.”
2. “Criminal aliens openly brag to ICE officers that they are taking advantage of the broken immigration system and will be back in the United States within days to commit crimes.”
3. “While ICE reports internally that more than 90 percent of ICE detainees are first encountered by ICE in jails after they are arrested by local police for criminal charges, ICE senior leadership misrepresents this information publicly in order to portray ICE detainees as being non-criminal in nature to support the Administration’s position on amnesty.”
4. “The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States Immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting”, “effectively creating ‘amnesty through policy.’”
5. “Hundreds of ICE officers nationwide perform no law enforcement duties whatsoever.”
6. Under new ICE Detention Reforms, “ICE officers will be prevented from searching detainees housed in ICE facilities allowing weapons, drugs, and other contraband into detention centers.”
7. “ICE has virtually no consistent national policies.

If these grievances are accurate, it’s easy to understand Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s position that President Obama is not enforcing the nation’s immigration laws nor protecting the citizens of Arizona as is his sworn duty. And these complaints shed a lot of Southwestern sunshine on the federal government’s otherwise inexplicable lawsuit against the Sovereign State of Arizona for its adoption of a state statue that mirrors federal law.

“Border enforcement is not something to be manipulated in return for legislative favors,” wrote Charles Krauthammer on August 6. “It is, as the administration vociferously argued in court in the Arizona case, the federal executive’s constitutional responsibility. Its job is to faithfully execute the laws. Non-execution is a dereliction of duty.”

While liberals label as xenophobes [1] and racists those Americans who demand the nation’s citizens be protected by enforcement of immigration laws, it becomes even clearer that the United States cannot afford to long tolerate an Administration that only selectively enforces the laws of the land to its own political advantage.

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[1] It’s easy to know when you’re winning the debate on the issue. The opposition resorts to personal attacks.
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Curtis Coleman is President of The Curtis Coleman Institute for Constitutional Policy, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He submitted this article to the ARRA News Service Editor. Coleman is also the Co-founder and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Safe Foods Corporation. He lectures on team building and servant leadership in the Emerging Leaders program at the Center for Management and Executive Development, University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton School of Business.

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Tags: Amnesty, policy, Obama administration, ICE, illegal aliens, criminals, illegal immigration, Arizona, Jan Brewer, Curtis Coleman, Institute for Constitutional Policy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!