His Name Is So Damn Fitting Because He Is Truly A Dick
ICE is a “group of incompetents” and should focus on drug interdiction, not immigration enforcement, says the second-ranking Democratic Senator, Sen. Dick Durbin.
“Look at ICE — what a group of incompetents,” he told CNN on Saturday, adding:
At this point, they are focused more on toddlers than terrorists. They want, instead of deporting felons, they want to deport families that are being persecuted by criminal gangs … instead of focussing on stopping bad drugs coming in and stopping dirty drug money from going out, they’re focussed on separating kids from their families.
Durbin sought to capture progressives’ anger at President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy for illegal immigration, saying:
Be part of this election, don’t stay home and curse the television … Come on out, use your citizens’ right to vote. That is the most important thing … I think the American people are going to speak loudly.
CNN
✔@CNN
“Look at ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), what a group of incompetents. At this point they’re focused more on toddlers than terrorists,” says Sen. Dick Durbin at rally in Chicago https://cnn.it/2Kkgl2x
With the worst drug crisis in our nation’s history, ICE and DHS should spend their resources on keeping drugs out and stopping drug money from being exported to gangs and cartels south of the border.
Senator Dick Durbin
✔@SenatorDurbin
It’s clear that ICE is unprepared and seemingly unwilling to reunite the infants and kids they forcibly removed at the border. We need a different solution to this humanitarian crisis.
ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in more than 400 offices in the United States and 46 foreign countries. The agency has an annual budget of approximately $6 billion, primarily devoted to three operational directorates – Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). A fourth directorate – Management and Administration – supports the three operational branches to advance the ICE mission.
ICE’s efforts are focused on enforcing popular immigration laws, such as the laws requiring the removal of illegal migrants:
In FY2017, ICE ERO conducted 143,470 overall administrative arrests, which is the highest number of administrative arrests over the past three fiscal years. Of these arrests, 92 percent had a criminal conviction, a pending criminal charge, were an ICE fugitive or were processed with a reinstated final order. In FY2017, ICE conducted 226,119 removals. While this is a slight overall decrease from the prior fiscal year, the proportion of removals resulting from ICE arrests increased from 65,332, or 27 percent of total removals in FY2016 to 81,603, or 36 percent of total removals, in FY2017. These results clearly demonstrate profound, positive impact of the EO.
Without ICE, companies would be able to hire low-wage illegals instead of Americans, foreign children would crowd Americans’ kids from a good education, and real-estate costs would spike as foreigners rush to live in the peaceful, high-trust society built by Americans.
Durbin’s call for ICE to end enforcement was echoed by a statement from House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi. She “believes that ICE has been on the wrong end of far too many inhumane and unconstitutional practices to be allowed to continue without an immediate and fundamental overhaul,” said spokesman Drew Hammill, according to a report in the Washington Post.
“We do not think that protecting our border means putting children in cages,” Pelosi said June 28.
Durbin’s advocacy for mass-migration and for younger ‘dreamer’ illegals has caused the Democrats much political pain. He pushed forthe abortive budget-shutdown in January 2018, and for the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill in 2013 which helped the Democrats lose nine seats in 2014.
The Democrats’ top leader in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is keeping his distance from the “Abolish ICE” campaign, even as the unpopular demand has been embraced by several Democratic Senators who may run for President in 2020.
He is instead using his Twitter account to tout Democrats’ promises on healthcare, guns, gay status, and claims that President Donald Trump is tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the Abolish ICE campaign, Schumer is instead calling for a “czar” to focus media attention on “reunifying families.” That topic polls better for Democrats than ending immigration enforcement.
Chuck Schumer
✔@SenSchumer
The president has the power to appoint a czar to marshal & organize the agencies in charge of reunifying families. He should exercise that power, listen to all those marching today & clean up the mess he made w/ his slapdash family separation policy. #FamiliesBelongTogetherMarch
Democratic activists say the “Abolish ICE” campaign is not intended to open the borderswhich are guarded by the Customs and Border Protection agency. Instead, the activists say they hope to block ICE from deporting the economic migrants or refugees who get across the border, and who are seeking jobs and apartments as well as schools for their children.
But that no-deportations policy would allow many companies to hire illegals instead of Americans. That subsequent rush of millions of migrants would force down wages for Americans and for legal immigrants, spike stock values on Wall Street, force up rents and housing prices, and also overcrowd public K-12 schools.
What is this asshole still doing in Trump’s administration?
WASHINGTON — John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, said Wednesday that it was doubtful that a wall along the full border with Mexico would ever be built, despite an oft-repeated campaign promise by President Trump.
“It is unlikely that we will build a wall from sea to shining sea,” Mr. Kelly told senators on the Homeland Security Committee.
Instead, Mr. Kelly said, the department will look to build physical barriers — including fencing and concrete walls — in places that make sense. He said that the department was still studying the best places to construct such barriers, and that he could not give an estimate of the cost.
The first bids for prototypes of the border wall were due Tuesday. According to people briefed on the agency’s plan, the first new section of the wall will be built on a short strip of federally owned land in San Diego, where there is already fencing.
Congress has not yet acted on the funding request for the wall, and it faces considerable opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Congress probably would not grant the Trump administration’s request for additional money for the border wall this year, adding that it would most likely be included in the next fiscal year’s appropriation.
In his budget released this month, Mr. Trump asked for $1.4 billion to pay for the initial development of the wall. The Department of Homeland Security said enough funding had been moved from other programs to begin construction.
Democrats have vowed to block Mr. Trump’s budget proposals to build the wall and add Border Patrol and deportation agents.
Mr. Kelly’s department has begun implementing key features of Mr. Trump’s executive orders to increase border security and crack down on illegal immigration. Federal judges have blocked the department from carrying out the president’s executive orders seeking to ban travel to the United States by citizens of six mostly Muslim countries.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kelly said the department was proceeding with other efforts to strengthen border security and was starting to see some results. For example, he noted that apprehensions along the southwestern border had declined. Border Patrol agents caught almost 17,000 people trying to cross the border illegally last month, down from nearly 60,000 people in December.
Mr. Kelly said stepped-up enforcement had forced smugglers to raise their prices, which most likely contributed to the decline in crossings.
Under questioning by senators on Wednesday, Mr. Kelly defended several Trump administration policies, including what the Homeland Security Department calls “extreme vetting” of international travelers, the searching of electronic devices at the border, and the possible separation of mothers and children at the border to discourage immigration.
Mr. Kelly told senators that children would not be routinely separated from their families unless the “situation at the time requires it,” such as when the mother is sick or addicted to drugs.
Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the committee, raised concerns that the Homeland Security Department and the State Department were considering asking visitors applying for a visa to the United States for access to their cellphones, financial records and passwords to social media accounts.
Ms. McCaskill called the proposal “un-American” and said it could set off a diplomatic row with other countries.
“I’m worried that if we apply ‘extreme vetting’ procedures like this, American travelers will be forced to undergo the same scrutiny if these countries decide to reciprocate,” she said. “We are doing things that in no way trips up the bad guys.”
Mr. Kelly said that the visa-vetting procedures built on polices that had been in place for years and that foreign visitors could choose not to share their personal details.
“If they don’t cooperate, they can go back,” he said.
Asked about searching electronic devices at the border, Mr. Kelly said that just a small number of people had had their phones or computers searched. And he said the searches had yielded results, catching pedophiles and other criminals.
But that failed to persuade Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who called the policy “obscene” because it also affected citizens and green card holders.
“There is a difference between searching my bags and searching my phones,” said Mr. Paul, who added that he was worried that customs agents were downloading contacts and other information from cellphones.
Mr. Kelly got into a heated exchange with Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, who pressed him to put his policy on separating families into writing for the sake of border agents. Mr. Kelly said he had done so orally and did not need to put it in writing.
Ms. Harris also questioned the use of more intense enforcement efforts to round up undocumented immigrants, including by sending agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement into courthouses to arrest witnesses and victims.
“They are now allowed to do their jobs,” Mr. Kelly replied.