The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes a good point: Any criticism Congress has for how his agency conducts itself can ultimately be redirected back at the Congress itself.
After all, ICE derives all of its power from Congress, and we’d all be better off if lawmakers realize they have the real authority in these issues.
The agency’s director, Thomas Homan, made this exact point this week after Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., criticized ICE during a hearing for the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.
Her specific criticism was that the federal agency often lumps all illegal immigrants with gang members.
“We love to talk about this issue about the MS-13 gangs,” she said. “We love to paint immigrants as criminals. That is not the complete facts, and that is very offensive for me to see continuing to happen. It’s continuing to message this. This anti-immigrant agenda. There are many of lots of good immigrants.”
She added, “And then I hear this rhetoric: ‘More [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals]-like people.’ Guess what. ‘DACA-like people’ are the people we need in this country. They’ve served this country, they’ve gone to college, they produce, and they contribute to the economy. So to put them into the same category is completely offensive.”
Homan, who has increased ICE’s efforts to deport all illegal immigrants and has demanded criminal charges for pro-sanctuary city politicians, was not pleased with her remarks.
“First of all, no one on this panel is anti-immigrant. We are law enforcement officers that enforce the law that you all enacted. So to sit there and say that we’re anti-immigrant is just wrong. We are enforcing the laws. If you think it’s okay to enter the country illegally, and you shouldn’t be arrested, that’s just wrong,” he said.
He added, “The laws clearly state, if you enter the country illegally, it is a crime. And no one is up here saying all illegal aliens are criminals. A certain percentage of them are criminals. They commit yet another offense after they are here. I have said many times I certainly understand the plight of these people, and I feel bad for some of these people, but I have a job to do. I have to enforce the law, and uphold the oath I took to enact the laws enacted by you, Congress.”
This is all true. Also, this isn’t necessarily a defense of ICE or its tactics (that’s another post for another day). Rather, this is merely to say that Homan is correct, and that Congress would do better to recognize this. Members of Congress can only get so upset when ICE enforces their law as written, because they’ve repeatedly failed to reform the law and seem no closer to doing so now.
Any criticism that Rep. Barragan has for ICE ultimately goes back to Congress. If she wants to change the way it operates, she needs to look to the deliberative body of which she is a member. This is part of a larger problem, I think, of the nation’s lawmakers seemingly deferring their power to the executive branch and/or any bureaucratic authority that will take it.
It shouldn’t take hundreds of ICE roundups to remind members of Congress that they actually have the power and authority to do something about issues they think are unjust. But hey — if it helps to remind them that they’re not just passive observers, I’ll take it.
