September 29, 2003
The ICE Meltdown: We Name The Guilty Bureaucrats!
By
Juan Mann
D.A. King’s experience trying to report illegal
aliens, just
reported on VDARE.COM, says it all: An immigration
enforcement meltdown is underway.
The signs are now crystal clear that the new
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE—now
shortened apparently for marketing purposes to
ICE) is following the same non-enforcement policies
of the despised and abolished Immigration and
Naturalization Service.
In fact, things may be getting worse.
The DHS still isn’t asking for reports on the illegal
aliens they don’t know about. And it can’t or won’t go
out and get the ones they already know about.
The policy remains: Don’t ask. Don’t tell us.
As I have
reported before, and noted in my comment on
D.A. King’s article, there is still no system in
place to encourage American citizens (and
legally-authorized aliens, for that matter) to report
illegal aliens and criminal alien residents. And, in the
age of the internet, the DHS has yet to publicize any
e-mail address for this purpose, or to create an online
reporting form like the one the FBI has already
in place to report criminal activity.
And to make matters worse, a recent DHS change in
immigration bond policy has all but eliminated the
financial incentive for bonding companies to capture
aliens who skipped out on their immigration bonds.
As reported by Julia Malone of Cox Newspapers, [Unwanted:
Fugitive illegals , Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
May 4, 2003] the DHS immigration bond policy has gone
from difficult to
even worse.
Bail enforcement agents from immigration bonding
companies are the only private citizens
legally-authorized to apprehend alien fugitives and
turn them over to the government. But under the new
policy, even if the bonding company actually turns in a
fugitive alien, the government will still consider the
immigration bond for that particular alien “breached.”
It won’t give the bondsmen their bond money back—unless
they bring the alien to the exact
field office where the alien was released!
So for all that work in catching and transporting the
aliens—all on the government’s behalf, of course—why
would bonding companies bother catching them at all?
ICE’s Office of Detention and Removal [DRO]
field offices still have the absurd task of finding
the illegal aliens and criminal aliens that they already
released on immigration bonds sometimes many years ago.
The ridiculous delay is due to the fatally-flawed U.S.
Immigration Court
system as I have
reported
again and
again.
There are 300,000-plus “absconders” (ordered
“deported” on paper and) on the loose. But ICE hasn’t
seen fit to make the names of these fugitives public.
And with no one to go get them, the vast majority of
aliens who aren’t
detained are never heard from again. This is the
“catch and release” game that resulted in the
release of
Beltway sniper John Lee Malvo.
ICE simply isn’t interested in putting illegal aliens
on ice. It certainly doesn’t encourage help from the
public.
Of course, first stop in reporting illegal aliens
should be the local ICE investigations division
field offices. But their e-mail addresses are
disgracefully scarce. (D.A. King found his Atlanta-area
office:
atliceduty@dhs.gov.)
However, ICE has set up a phone number to “report
suspicious activity” that rings at the department’s Law
Enforcement Service Center: (866) DHS-2ICE. This
“suspicious activity” number might also be a good place
to call. It’s worth a try.
If calling (866) DHS-2ICE doesn’t work, I suggest
calling one of the ICE public affairs
field offices. This is a public affair, isn’t it?
Ask them what ICE is doing about the
8.4 million (give or take a few million) illegal aliens and
criminal alien residents on the loose. Ask them what you
can do. Ask when American citizens and
law enforcement officers are going to be allowed to
fulfill their patriotic duty and help enforce the law?
Who is responsible for the ICE meltdown?
Numero Uno (so to speak): DHS
Secretario Ridge, of course.
But the culprits directly responsible for this
non-enforcement disaster are three ICE bureaucrats:
