An Immigration and Customs Enforcement union has issued a vote of no confidence berating ICE director John Morton and the assistant director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning for “abandoning the agency’s core mission” of immigration enforcement in favor of an amnesty campaign.
The union’s council, American Federation of Government Employees National Council 188, which said it was acting on behalf of its thousands of members, cast the vote in order to “publicly separate ourselves” from the agency leadership’s efforts to campaign “for programs and policies related to amnesty and the creation of a special detention system for foreign nationals that exceeds the care and services provided” to most jailed US citizens.
The ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Susan Collins, R-Maine, has called on DHS secretary Janet Napolitano to look into concerns raised by the group, as well as an agency draft memo they made public describing ways to pursue immigration reform that Collins views as an attempt to circumvent the legislative process.
“The issues raised by ICE officers are of great concern to me,” she said, adding that the draft memo indicates DHS “is considering how to avoid removing illegally present individuals from the country as a way of administratively achieving ‘meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action.’”
She said the memo and the concerns brought up “raise serious questions in my mind about the department’s commitment to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”
The union also maintains the department is overstating the effectiveness of programs including Secure Communities, saying they lack necessary manpower and resources.
