NWV News -- ICE Agents Secretly Reassigned by President Bush

I.C.E. AGENTS SECRETLY REASSIGNED BY PRESIDENT BUSH

By Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
August 30, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

The latest news not being covered by the mainstream news media is President George W. Bush's reassignment of some 1,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to work as US Customs officers.

News of this reassignment began to leak out after a press conference on Wednesday by Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, announcing that special agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had executed criminal search warrants at Koch Foods in Fairfield, Ohio.

ICE identified more than 180 Koch employees working at the Fairfield plant requiring further questioning and administratively arrested more than 160 for immigration violations. ICE agents simultaneously executed criminal search warrants at Koch's corporate office in Chicago.

The enforcement actions were part of a two-year, ongoing ICE investigation based on evidence that Koch Foods may have been knowingly hired illegal aliens at its poultry processing and packaging facility.

"While Secretary Myers tooted her horn about ICE and President Bush's strategy to curtail illegal alien workers, the Department of Homeland Security was already preparing to reassign ICE agents," claims former New York City detective Sid Francis.

"When it comes to government agencies, the liberal-left's -- including so-called "compassionate conservatives" such as Bush and Senator John McCain -- least favorite agencies are ICE and the US Border Patrol," said Detective Francis.

"The Bush Administration has always attempted to control the actions of its Immigration workers especially those assigned to Border Patrol and ICE. While telling Americans he's increasing border security and immigration enforcement, behind the scenes Bush is handcuffing federal agents in order to prevent them from having significant impact on illegal immigration," claims political strategist Mike Baker.

"Bush is once again appeasing his political pals in Mexico, while at the same time conning American citizens," accuses Baker.

In addition to the transfers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminal investigators will no longer be involved in immigration work site enforcement or conduct checks for illegal alien prisoners. This will mean that companies hiring illegal aliens will get a pass from the White House to hire illegal aliens, including companies that perform contract work for the US military.

Created in March 2003, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The agency was created after 9/11, by combining the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the former U.S. Customs Service, to more effectively enforce our immigration and customs laws and to protect the United States against terrorist attacks.

According to their mission statement ICE does this by targeting illegal immigrants: the people, money and materials that support terrorism and other criminal activities. ICE is a key component of the DHS "layered defense" approach to protecting the nation.

Human trafficking and human smuggling represent significant risks to homeland security. Would-be terrorists and criminals can often access the same routes and utilize the same methods being used by human smugglers. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit works to identify criminals and organizations involved in these illicit activities.

The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. Sex trafficking occurs when a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or when the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18 years of age.

Some smuggling situations may involve murder, rape and assault. The perpetration of violent crime in itself does not constitute human trafficking, because its elements remain fraud or coercion for commercial sex or forced labor.

In an interview with News with Views, Karina Palick, FOIA Officer with ICE, claims the report regarding transfer of almost one-fifth of ICE special agents wasn't expected to be revealed so close to the defeat of Congress' immigration bills, including the US Senate's amnesty bill. However, she nor other staff would discuss the genesis of this obvious security breach.

But the US Border Patrol Union, Local 2544, is bluntly warning Americans: "The White House will refuse to secure the borders unless they get another amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens (don't be fooled by their "estimates" of 12-20 million, because they have no idea how many are really here).

"This is a foolish declaration, in spite of what the American people are demanding. Politics at its finest in America today, courtesy of President Bush. Endanger this country's security if you can't get your personal "legacy" of amnesty (code named "comprehensive immigration reform"). You buy their promise of "border security" at your own peril, America.

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"You'll certainly get millions of illegal aliens, but the border security will be a long time coming, if it comes at all. This is nothing more than a repeat of the 1986 amnesty debacle, but it's super-sized this time. 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.'"

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