The National ICE Council launched a new website on Tuesday that highlights some of the issues ICE agents are facing when trying to enforce federal immigration laws. The National ICE Council hopes the website will bring these problems to the public's attention.
“ICE Officers grudgingly admit that the only President they ever endorsed hasn’t kept his word, and many officers now feel betrayed,” the officers say on the website.
A letter written by the president of the National ICE Council, Chris Crane, is posted on the website. Crane writes:
“While officers view the President’s position on enforcement as courageous, the Trump administration has left all of the Obama managers and leadership in place, a group that ICE Officers know after the last eight years to be completely incompetent, corrupt and anti-enforcement...
“While President Trump did create an uptick in morale at ICE through his support of enforcement operations, tensions are on the rise between Trump’s army of Obama holdovers and boots on the ground officers in the field, as behind the scenes Obama holdovers continue to undermine law enforcement operations and wage war against their own law enforcement officers.”
According to one story on the website, during an arrest in a dangerous area of Philadelphia, the ICE agents involved were told to remove their bullet proof vests that showed they were federal agents. They were told that they did not want to offend the immigrants living in the community.
When neighbors saw unidentified men surround the house they called the police who arrived on the scene thinking a burglary was in progress. Eventually the ICE officers identified themselves to the police and no one was harmed.
The local ICE Union President, Officer Gabriel Cimino, commented on the incident saying, “No legitimate law enforcement agency ever orders its officers not to wear protective body armor. This is how officers get killed.”
Another story features a problem in Park City, Utah where ICE agents are forced to reveal the names and addresses of their targets and are forced to wait a week before making the arrests. The ICE agents say that when they finally receive “permission” to enter the city all of their targets have been alerted and are gone.
The story claims that, “while they can’t prove it, ICE Officers believe city officials are tipping off their targets so they can flee before ICE can make an arrest.”
Read more on this story at The Washington Times.
