AZMEX POLICY 6-11-13

AZMEX POLICY 6 NOV 2013


U.S. Immigration Officers Give Frightening Warning
David InserraNovember 1, 2013 at 11:30 am(46)

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/11/01/u-s-immigration-officers-give-frightening-warning/

Chris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council, which represents immigration enforcement officers, recently called on Congress to resist immigration reforms that harm his officers' ability to do their jobs:

ICE officers are being ordered by [Administration] political appointees to ignore the law. Violent criminal aliens are released every day from jails back into American communities. ICE Officers face disciplinary action for engaging in routine law enforcement actions. We are barred from enforcing large sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act, even when public safety is at risk. Officer morale is devastated.
If this were the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the military, Congress would be outraged, the President would react fir
mly and swiftly, and pundits and groups from across the country would be demanding this problem be fixed. Sadly, though, nothing is being done to fix this broken and dangerous state of affairs.
In fact, the situation is even scarier. As the ICE letter points out, President Obama continues to order ICE officers to ignore ever-growing sections of immigration law and undertake actions that create a risk to public safety. The Senate has passed a gargantuan immigration bill that includes mass amnesty, tons of handouts to special interests, and enough waivers and exemptions to make Obamacare officials jealous.

Notably, the Senate bill does little to actually support the hard-working men and women of ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies. Even worse, amnesty would make the work of ICE even more difficult by encouraging more illegal immigration and adding new classes of provisional immigrants who have special rules that apply to them.

It is sad that it has come to this: "ICE officers are pleading with [Congress] to…stand with American citizens and the immigration officers who put their own personal safety at risk each day to provide for public safety." U.S. law enforcement officers should not have to beg Congress just to enforce existing laws.
Congress should reject amnesty, which would only further harm our immigration officers' effort, and instead use the budget process to give ICE and other immigration agencies the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. Then Congress should demand that President Obama uphold immigration law, not selectively enforce it.

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Updated 35 minutes ago.
Effort to build Arizona border fence appears dead
Source: Arizona News
Originally published: Nov 5, 2013 - 11:36 pm

http://ktar.com/22/1570763/Effort-to-build-AZ-border-fence-appears-dead-

PHOENIX (AP) - A plan by Arizona lawmakers to build a mile of fencing along the border with Mexico using private money may be declared dead Wednesday, more than three years after border security proponents crafted the proposal.

The Arizona Legislature's border security advisory committee will take up the issue when it meets for the first time in more than a year.

The main backer has given up on the state fencing plan and hopes to transfer the money to border sheriffs, said Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, the co-chair of the committee. Stevens said Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, realizes enough private money to get the job done can't be raised.

"He wants to put it to use on the border, because it's not enough to build a fence," Stevens said Tuesday evening.

About $2.8 million is needed to build a mile of fencing, but only about 10 percent of that has been raised. Lawmakers at first wanted to build 200 miles of fencing.

The committee launched a website in July 2011, buildtheborderfence.com, to collect private donations. The effort came during the height of Arizona's battle against illegal immigration, before a backlash that left former Senate President Russell Pearce out of a job after a recall and the GOP-led Legislature with no more appetite for measures targeting immigration.

After the committee's most recent meeting in August 2012, Smith said he hoped construction on the first mile could begin by late 2012.

The Legislature created the committee in 2010 and tasked it with making recommendations to the governor about how to handle the border. The fence project was one of its key goals. Members include Republican state lawmakers, county sheriffs and state department heads.

The lawmakers aren't voting members, and Stevens said it is unclear if enough non-lawmakers will attend Wednesday to call a vote to end the fence plan and transfer the cash to the sheriffs for other border security measures.

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