Immigration agents sue over new rules By Jason Buch

[itzel 336]

A group of immigration agents filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop a new Obama administration program that gives work permits to some immigrants who came to the country as children.

The 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, seven of them from Texas, say the new deferred action program that helps some young immigrants who came to the country illegally as children also prevents agents from doing their jobs.

Deferred action, which began last week, allows some students, graduates and veterans age 30 or younger to apply for a two-year protection from deportation and work permits.

The agents said as part of the program, they're being told not to pursue removal proceedings against people who might be eligible for deferred action. Following those orders, they say, would mean disobeying immigration laws and their oaths as agents.

“We have officers who are under threats of losing their jobs and retirements ... if they attempt to enforce the laws that are on the books,” said ICE agent and union president Chris Crane, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit against homeland security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton filed in a Dallas federal court alleges that in July, agents in El Paso were ordered to release an illegal immigrant who had been arrested by local police and who assaulted agents.

The agents are represented by Kris Kobach, an adviser to Mitt Romney and strong advocate for cracking down on immigration, and the lawsuit was funded by the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA.

Kobach said he'd kept the GOP presidential hopeful's campaign advised about the lawsuit, but had not received input from it.

The involvement drew derision from the AFL-CIO

“These agents are working with some of the most anti-immigrant forces in the country, forces that have long sowed division and destruction,” Richard Trumka, president of the labor federation, said in a statement.

Republican lawmakers voiced their support Thursday for the agents and their lawsuit.

“This policy not only hurts ICE agents but also unemployed American workers who have to compete with illegal immigrants for scarce jobs,” House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said in a statement. “The Obama administration regularly puts illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of American workers.”

In a conference call with reporters, Crane said agents have been instructed not to deport immigrants who might be eligible for deferred action but haven't been given guidance on how to determine that.

“The one consistent guidance we do have in the field as ICE agents and officers is when we come into contact with individuals who say they're a Dreamer, ‘I went to high school, I have a GED,' we have to accept that claim, and there's no burden of proof for the alien to prove that claim,” he said.

Under Obama, DHS and ICE officials have implemented policies that they say shifts the agency away from random deportations and instead targets illegal immigrants who are a risk to public safety or national security.

The ICE rank and file has pushed back, saying the policies, like deferred action and a memo from Morton last year that set priorities for deportations, tie their hands. The confrontation came to a head this week with the Dallas lawsuit.

The policies are rooted in prosecutorial discretion, a legal concept that says law enforcement can decide which criminals it pursues. But opponents of ICE's new policies say they've taken it too far, circumventing congressional intent by choosing not to deport large groups of people.

DHS officials did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, but Alonzo Peña, ICE's former deputy director, called the lawsuit “ludicrous.”

“ICE doesn't have the manpower nor the money to arrest and detain every single person that's in the United States illegally,” Peña said. “So they have to have some kind of criteria to say, ‘How are we going to use the resources?' I think it's very meritorious to say, ‘We're going to focus on the people that pose the greatest threat to public safety and national security.'”

Peña likened it to a narcotics agent choosing to investigate large drug rings rather than arrest someone smoking a joint, or a state trooper ignoring someone speeding to pull over a drunk driver.

“He's got to focus on the one who's causing the greatest threat to the community,” Peña said.

Immigration officials have exercised prosecutorial discretion for decades, said Dan Kowalski, an Austin immigration attorney.

He disagreed with claims that Obama's most recent policy, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, applies prosecutorial discretion too broadly.

“One obvious weakness of the case is that it alleges DHS is granting relief wholesale, to a (large) group, when in fact the DACA process is a one-by-one, case-by-case determination, individualized,” Kowalski said of Thursday's lawsuit. “A lot of individuals, to be sure, but still one-by-one, each one judged on the merits.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Immigration-agents-sue-over-new-rules-3810200.php#ixzz24xS4n4F5

[pswa83 302]

i read this too and think it's completely stupid that they are suing. they are paid to do their job and if their job states not to deport DACA applicants then that is what need to do. follow orders.

[itzel 336]

Exactly, when you sign on for a job, you follow orders.

So, this is just me talking about my opinions...before DACA, they didnt feel any type of remorse when a mother who left her children in day care was asking them to give her a few minutes to make a call before deporting her, to make sure someone picked up her children.

But they feel offended when they are asked to follow new orders???

Give me a break...

[pswa83 302]

right?!