John T. Morton, the assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune last week that his agency (ICE) may not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities because he does not think that the new Arizona immigration law is the appropriate way to address immigration problems. Later on the same day, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that federal homeland security officials will await a US Department of Justice examination of the civil rights and other implications of the new Arizona law before deciding how to approach the problem of illegal aliens crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona.
So we have a high ranking federal law enforcement officer, who has sworn an oath to enforce the laws of the United States, which - of special importance to his particular agency (ICE) - includes federal immigration laws, saying that he will not work with law enforcement officials in one state due to his disagreement with that state's new law. Since the new Arizona law was passed to encourage and facilitate cooperation between Arizona officials and federal officials in enforcing laws designed to secure the country's borders, Morton's position amounts to gross malfeasance and a dereliction of his duties as director of ICE.
This is particularly odd since the ICE website states that "ICE's mission is to protect the security of the American people and homeland by vigilantly enforcing the nation's immigration and customs laws... ICE combines innovative investigative techniques, new technological resources and a high level of professionalism to provide a wide range of resources to the public and to our federal, state and local law enforcement partners." http://www.ice.gov/about/index.htm
John Morton's statement to the Chicago Tribune appears to make it clear to Arizonians that he will not be very "vigilant" nor very "professional" in providing any assistance to state law enforcement "partners" in Arizona.
It is very strange for the leader of ICE to take the position Morton has since the new Arizona law only requires state law enforcement officers to inquire about immigration status whenever "any lawful stop, detention or arrest [is] made by a law enforcement official" and a "reasonable suspicion exists that the person [stopped] is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States". Even without any statute, it would seem that such an inquiry would be a logical approach for any law enforcement officer to take in any state in the country.
Morton's refusal to cooperate with Arizona state officials in carrying out his responsibility to help protect the citizens of Arizona seems to be based on the objection to the law that has been expressed by the President, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security. All of these high ranking federal officials (of whom the latter two admitted in Congressional testimony last week that they have NOT even read the new law) have indicated publicly their concern that the law could potentially cause "racial profiling". However, the Arizona statute expressly provides that law enforcement officers "may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing" the law.
Before any person detained pursuant to the Arizona law can be released from custody that "person's immigration status shall be verified with the federal government" pursuant to Section 1373 of the federal immigration law. [Arizona Senate Bill 1070 enacted as Law 2010, Chapter 113 of the Arizona statutes can be found at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/SB1070-HB2162New.PDF.]
Section 1373 of the federal law cited above (that John Morton swore to uphold) says that no state or local government may be prohibited, or in any way restricted, from sending to ..... ICE information regarding the lawful or unlawful status of an alien in the United States. It would be presumptuous to assume that Morton's statement to the Chicago Tribune is actually an attempt to "restrict" Arizona officials from sending information to ICE. That would be a violation of the federal law Mr. Morton was sworn to uphold!
Besides, if Morton and the other higher ranking federal officials in the Obama Administration were really concerned about racial profiling (rather than just making political points with some favored bloc of the voting public), ICE could help prevent any such affront to American values of fairness by cooperating with Arizona under the ICE Secure Communities Program which is designed to assist state and local law enforcement personnel in protecting their communities from criminal illegal aliens.
The ICE website describes the Secure Communities Program as follows:
"When someone is booked into local custody, their fingerprints are taken. Those fingerprints are checked against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) for criminal history.... [and] against the Department of Homeland Security’s database, the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) for immigration records. When fingerprint submissions match immigration records, local ICE officers are automatically notified and can promptly determine if enforcement action is required. Criminal history and immigration information can also be shared with state law enforcement agencies.
......
Secure Communities is a color blind system and reduces the opportunity for allegations of racial and ethnic profiling because the fingerprints of every individual arrested and booked into custody are checked against immigration records, not just those manually submitted by local officers." http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/secure_communities-facts.htm
It seems that Mr. Morton would want Arizona officials to report suspected illegal immigrants to ICE so that the ICE, DOJ and DHS databases could be used to assure that any decisions made about a detainee's immigration status would be based on the federal system that is designed to be "color blind" and reduces the potential for racial profiling.
The fact that DOJ has to study an 18 page state law (for at least one month as of this writing) before DHS and ICE can determine whether to work with Arizona to help solve that state's illegal immigration problems and protect its citizens from criminal acts by illegal aliens rather than to use the existing programs and databases established to enforce immigration laws based on factual information, without any racial profiling, demonstrates the utter lack of sincerity in the objections being made about the Arizona law.
The outrageous claims being made by Obama Administration officials regarding the potential of Arizona's law enforcement officers to ignore the express requirements of their state law that bar any racial profiling in the law's implementation even led to the President of Mexico expressing his opposition to the Arizona law for the same reason at a joint session of Congress last week for which he received a standing ovation by the Democrats in the hall. In effect, this event could be seen as our own government inviting a foreign leader to accuse Arizona's officers of the law of being prejudiced bigots willing to ignore their state's legal requirements. Law enforcement officials everywhere in the US should consider this an insult of the highest order.
The public protestations by the Obama Administration of the potential for racial profiling in Arizona are purely political posturing and those federal officials responsible are failing to carry out their sworn Constitutional duties.
Perhaps President Obama and his team want the news media distracted by bogus claims of racial profiling in Arizona so the spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico being watched by impotent federal officials making ineffective threats against BP does not receive more attention in the news.
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