U.S. ICE and Homeland Security Officials Lacking Accountability

Time to recall Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona

By H. Nelson Goodson

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

March 5, 2009

Washington, D.C. - The raid late last month in Bellingham, Washington by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has definitely sparked a new debate over accountability of our federal law enforcement agencies. Janet Napolitano, the new Homeland security secretary didn’t even know a raid had been planned for months and executed by U.S. ICE and Homeland security officials. Immigration officials arrested 28 undocumented immigrants working at Yamato Engine Specialists during the raid. Napolitano says she will investigate, but came short of flexing her authority to led these federal officials know that they are now working for a new Homeland security secretary. Whose President and Congress with a majority of Democrats has a different view on immigration enforcement.

Should rogue U.S. ICE and Homeland security officials responsible for the covert immigration raid be held accountable? For their over zealous attempt to challenge Napolitano’s and President Barack Obama’s immigration stance. Obama wants work-site enforcement to be focused on the employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Obama’s approach on immigration enforcement is quite different then former President George W. Bush.

Immigration rights groups and reform advocates are now organizing across the nation against this type of covert raids and are advocating accountability.

In Arizona, last weekend several thousand people marched during a peaceful protest against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix. The protesters want Arpaio to stop abusing U.S. ICE program 287(g), which allows designated law enforcement officers under supervision of U.S. ICE agents to exercise certain immigration enforcement authority. Arpaio is now accused of using local police and deputy sheriff’s as immigration officers without actual supervision of U.S. ICE agents to oversee the relentless immigration raids and sweeps in Latino neighborhoods. A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows that federal oversight of the 287(g) program has been sorely lacking, according to a March 3 editorial by the New York Times.

The protesters in Phoenix have marched in large numbers, but now they need to get organized politically and recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I’m sure a potential candidate willing to bring criminals to justice instead of focusing primarily on immigration enforcement can challenge Arpaio. This country is still a democracy, isn’t it.



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