UNIONS, GOP SENATORS RAISE ALARM ON OBAMA’S AMNESTY POWER-GRAB

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ICE ‘Secure Communities Program’, Illegals, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, unqualified illegals

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-ALA)

By: James R. Edwards, Jr.
8/5/2012 09:33 AM

The Obama administration’s de facto amnesty for younger illegal aliens has major Homeland Security unions and key lawmakers up in arms over the policy’s dangerous effects and lawless basis.

The heads of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ and Border Patrolmen’s unions joined Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and David Vitter (R-La.) at a recent press conference in Washington. The labor leaders exposed the end-run legalization scheme that Obama higher-ups are implementing.

U.S. agents are under orders to take the word of all illegal aliens who claim they qualify for this amnesty, union leaders said. Word from the field has it that “significant numbers” of unqualified illegals are exploiting the Obama policy.

“Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything,” the head of the ICE union, Chris Crane, said. Any agents who buck the Obama amnesty directive stand “under threat of losing their jobs.”

Crane, a veteran ICE special agent, serves as president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, which has more than 7,000 members. George McCubbin is president of the National Border Patrol Council, with more than 17,000 members.

Exploiting loopholes

Two years ago, Obama political appointees at Homeland Security scoped out loopholes they could exploit in a notorious memorandum that got leaked. They considered provisions in law intended only for rare exceptions. Officials would apply the narrow exceptions wholesale to entire groups of illegal aliens.

ICE head John Morton, another Obama flunky, had already been disassembling effective immigration enforcement tools. He issued an order a year ago. The infamous Morton memo uses the ruse of “prosecutorial discretion”—a concept intended for case-by-case application—to achieve wide-reaching amnesty results.

The ICE Council unanimously took a vote of no confidence in its members’ agency leadership, naming Morton and assistant director Phyllis Coven. The union stated, “ICE is misleading the American public with regard to the effectiveness of criminal enforcement programs like the ICE ‘Secure Communities Program’ using it as a selling point to move forward with amnesty related legislation.”

Morton memo abuses authority

The most recent Obama abuse of immigration authority relies on the Morton memo. The ICE directive to field officers forces them to give a free pass to every illegal alien claiming to be in high school or going for a GED. > > > READ MORE