Where is ICE in all this mess?
As an ICE/DRO supervisor from CA, I can honestly tell you that we are simply overwhelmed with the amount of criminal aliens and procedural requirements that go along with them. In our small sub-office, with a staff of no more than 6 agents per shift (leave, training, details, etc. greatly reduce our staff), we have been processing and moving 80 to 100 criminal aliens per day. 98 percent are aliens that are arrested by other law enforcement agencies for other crimes and 2 percent are from Fugitive Operations.
In addition to normal processing and transportation requirements, many of these aliens have medical problems which we must provide first rate medical care for (thanks ACLU!). In fact, we make daily trips to hospital emergency rooms and pharmacies to provide health care and medication for these criminal aliens. How’s that for service?
We also have to accommodate attorney visits for the aliens which makes for very long days.
So, while we would like to spend more time apprehending and removing illegal aliens, we are forced (lawsuits against ICE are plentiful) to provide a “safer and more humane detention environment” for our detained aliens. They call it Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) - look it up.
My only hope is that some day, citizens will actually realize how difficult it is to remove illegal aliens with the ACLU and other illegal immigrants’ rights groups protecting them at every opportunity. It doesn’t help when pro-sanctuary elected officials (Boxer, Feinstein, Newsom, Villaraigosa, etc.) and supposed DHS leaders (Napolitano) undermine respect for our immigration laws by refusing to enforce them.
All I can say is that we are doing the best we can!