Campaign Action
How toxic is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)? Enough that a group of ICE agents who handle investigations including human trafficking and organized crime want nothing to do with the ICE agents in charge of mass deportation and tearing hard-working immigrant families apart.
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 19 special agents from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are calling on Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen to split HSI from ICE, writing that the cruel tactics of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)—the ICE division that deports moms and dads—is making their jobs harder to do.
“HSI’s investigations have been perceived as targeting undocumented aliens, instead of the transnational criminal organizations that facilitate cross border crimes impacting our communities and national security,” the letter states:
They also wrote that “the perception of HSI’s investigative independence is unnecessarily impacted by the political nature” of ICE’s immigration enforcement. “Many jurisdictions continue to refuse to work with HSI because of a perceived linkage to the politics of civil immigration.”
Last year, internal emails revealed that it was then-DHS Sec. John Kelly who ordered an internal smear campaign to falsely portray the immigrants that deportation agents swept up in a series of raids as dangerous, when dozens had no criminal record at all. In fact, as the letter from ICE’s own special agents makes clear, it’s the administration’s actions that are making communities less safe by disrupting their investigations—and they want nothing to do with ERO.
“While separating HSI and ERO will have some administrative challenges,” the letter continues, “the establishment of two separate and independent agencies, will improve transparency, efficiency and effectiveness.” It’s clear HSI has been feeling the “Abolish ICE” pressure from Americans, but according to The Washington Post, “a senior ICE official in Washington said the HSI agents’ letter was ‘not well received’ at the agency’s headquarters, calling it ‘ill conceived and poorly timed’ at a moment when so many staffers feel besieged by the backlash.’” That includes Alonzo Peña, a former ICE deputy director.
Instead of “contributing to the welfare and safety of the country,” said Peña, the agents worry that HSI is “just becoming a political pawn for this administration.”
HSI, he continued, is “supposed to be out there making these major cases, these big cartels that are smuggling guns, drugs, money. And because of this whole immigration rhetoric—that immigrants are bad, that they’re criminals and rapists and all that—the focus is totally off mission.”