{"id":15199,"date":"2017-08-15T12:15:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T16:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=15199"},"modified":"2018-12-28T12:40:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T17:40:50","slug":"has-a-sanctuary-mentality-taken-root-at-ice-that-depends-on-your-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2017\/08\/15\/has-a-sanctuary-mentality-taken-root-at-ice-that-depends-on-your-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Has a Sanctuary Mentality Taken Root at ICE? That Depends on Your Source."},"content":{"rendered":"

This past July, Jonathan Blitzer published a piece in The New Yorker<\/em> called, \u201cA Veteran ICE Agent, Disillusioned with the Trump Era, Speaks Out<\/a>.\u201d The article implies that, for moral reasons, many U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees have adopted the sanctuary mindset. The source of this information is supposedly an experienced ICE employee \u2013 working in immigration since the Clinton administration \u2013 who has become disillusioned under President Trump. (He\u2019s never identified, so we\u2019ll call him \u201cAgent X.\u201d) However, the expos\u00e9 is so riddled with errors that it makes one wonder: Do these complaints really come from a street-level ICE employee? Or someone higher up the food chain with a stake in the Clinton\/Obama approach to immigration?<\/p>\n

Supposedly, Agent X came forward because, \u201c\u2026with Obama gone\u2026,\u201d he saw \u201clong-standing standards being discarded and basic protocols questioned.\u201d But that assertion doesn\u2019t make any sense at all<\/a>. It was the Obama administration that abandoned established operational principles and kept ICE employees from engaging in good immigration police work. The Trump administration has merely said, \u201cEnforce the INA as written<\/a>\u201d \u2013 allowing ICE employees to finally do their jobs again.<\/p>\n

Agent X also claims that he fears being sued. But immigration officers enforcing federal law, as written, and in good faith, are protected from personal lawsuits by a longstanding legal principle known as qualified immunity<\/em>. Of course this agent\u2019s fear seems to stem from the fact that he sees his job as preserving the best interests of illegal aliens<\/a> and criminals, rather than protecting the American people by enforcing the INA.<\/p>\n

The truth is, however, that Agent X is more likely to wind up the object of legal action based on \u00a0his assertion that he and his like-minded colleagues are \u201ctrying to figure out how to minimize the damage\u201d flowing from the Trump administration\u2019s policies. Immigration agents who refuse to enforce the INA typically wind up being fired. Those who actively impede its enforcement are subject to prosecution for crimes ranging from harboring illegal aliens to corruption. It\u2019s no wonder he doesn\u2019t want to identify himself.<\/p>\n

Some readers might wonder if average ICE employees are really like Agent X. Rest assured they are not. The vast majority of the dedicated men and women working enforcement-level jobs at ICE understand what the mainstream media and the Democratic Party don\u2019t seem to get: Americans are tired of illegal aliens and alien criminals getting a free pass. That\u2019s why the ICE agents\u2019 union sued the Obama administration over its prosecutorial discretion policies<\/a>. In an organization as large as the Department of Homeland Security, there are bound to be a few Agent X\u2019s. But their patriotic colleagues pay far less attention to them than the whining cultural elites in the mainstream media. Agent X got his 15 minutes of fame\u2026while his fellow agents were getting down to business.