ICE, Like Sarah Palin, “Going Rogue”?

In a piece on Huffington Post, Frank Sharry of America’s Voice says some immigrant rights leaders think that ICE has already gone rogue.  He reports that “Today, a group of grassroots leaders are demanding that the Obama Administration fire John Morton, the head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security. Deepak Bhargava of the Center of Community Change, a lead organizer of the immigration rally in Washington, D.C. on March 21st and a leader of FIRM (Fair Immigration Reform Movement), had this to say at today’s press conference: `This agency has gone rogue and is operating in clear opposition to the direction President Obama has set.’ What gives? It seems the stated priorities of President Obama may not be in sync with the cowboy tactics of ICE agents in the field.”

The call for Morton’s resignation is tied to the recent controversy over the public disclosure of a memo that created quotas for arrests of immigrants, which Morton later claimed had been “withdrawn” and did not represent ICE policy.  However, there are deeper concerns with ICE, including its detention and enforcement practices generally in an administratiion that this blog has claimed is devoted to immigration “enforcement now, enforcement forever.”

KJ