Poor leadership, poor priorities at ICE

IBD:

If there's one agency that's been made useless by its leaders, it's Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If, under a new policy, being here illegally is no longer reason enough for deportation, why does it still exist?

The Obama administration has effectively declared open borders to millions of would-be illegal immigrants — not through legislation, but with a sneaky policy move.

On Aug. 20, its man at ICE, John Morton, wrote a memo stating that being in the U.S. illegally is no longer sufficient reason to send someone home. An illegal immigrant now has to be a security threat or else commit a crime — and a violent one at that. To everyone else, ICE turns the blind eye.

Director Morton says it's a matter of priorities. But make no mistake: This is amnesty by another name.

Adding insult to injury, ICE will empty its costly, just-built detention centers of 17,000 existing deportation cases as long as an illegal can show that he or she has applied to become legal.

This, says the New York Times, will "pare huge case backlogs." And to ICE bureaucrats, it's proof they're doing their jobs.

In fact, it's an astonishing abrogation of duty. The policy turns ICE into a $6 billion border-jitney service for the subset of illegals who were picked up by other law enforcement agencies, convicted of violent crime and have served their time, and whose jailers didn't forget to put them on an "immigration hold" list.

Any others can make themselves at home.

...

I think the leadership of ICE is failing to faithful execute their duties to enforce the immigration laws. One of the first hearings after a Republican victory should be to call Morton before Congress and make clear to him that we expect all the laws to be enforced. By not pursuing non criminal illegals he is sending an open invitation to others to come here because nothing will happen to them. It is making the situation worse.

Of course we need to do something with the criminal aliens, but sending them back to Mexico were they can get a job with the cartels is not the answer either.

Morton has completely botched the job he was given and should be terminated if he is not going to enforce the law. We need to get back to the public raids on employers and work with the states who are trying to round up illegals so it will spur the kind of self deportation needed to get the situation under control.