Bosses Fleeing ICE
Jun 21st, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Immigration, PoliticsTHE BORDER REPORT
"ICE is not a very 'happy' place to be right now," reads the email from a high-level source at Justice Department last week.
And apparently not; I'm told that five senior-level managers in Southern Arizona have resigned their jobs at ICE, some retiring but others shifting over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
They include:
1) Richard Bailey, assistant-special-agent-in-charge
2) Lisa Fairchild, program manager
3) Bob Devine, resident-agent-in-charge at Nogales
4) Richard Hill, senior group supervisor
5) Michael Denofrio, senior group supervisor
This does not bode well for the beleaguered agency; ICE has had conceptual problems since it was formed in 2003 under Homeland Security.
The idea was to take the investigators from U.S. Customs Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service and combine them into a super-sleuth agency while inspections and patrols fell to the Customs and Border Protection. Somehow, Federal Protective Services, the guards at the federal buildings, were folded into ICE as well. Then ICE became responsible for Detention and Removal, the processor of captured illegal immigrants. Then ICE lost Air and Marine Operations to Customs and Border Protection (this pissed off the Black Hawk pilots at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to no end). Then all hell broke loose when the Shadow Wolves, the elite trackers of the Customs Service, were being shipped over to CBP as well. Congressional intervention by the likes of Arizona Republican John Shadegg put a stop to that. Pretty soon, ICE was becoming an administrative agency; the warriors of the old Customs Service becoming number-crunching flacks, subordinate to CBP.
Ouch.
But the damage was done and the shift hasn't been working out as planned. While CBP has been boosting its ranks - Chief David Aguilar's plan is to bring in 2,500 new Border Patrol agents this year, 3,000 the next and 500 by then end of 2008, doubling the size of the Border Patrol's 2001 ranks - ICE has had little more than a boost in administrative problems.
Part of that drifts back to 2003 when the agency started stepping on FBI's toes; at one point ICE had nearly as many foreign service agents as FBI. And information sharing has never been a favorite play for any agency.
Under the leadership of Michael Garcia, ICE even had more terror cases open than FBI, you can imgaine how that went over.
But these days ICE is under Julie Meyers.
Her Homeland Security bio states that she:
Served as special assistant to the president for presidential personnel.
Served as assistant secretary for Export Enforcement at the Department of Commerce.
Chief of staff for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice.
Deputy assistant secretary for Money Laundering and Financial Crimes at the Treasury Department.
*Source: Homeland Security Department
But this is what it doesn't say:
Worked briefly as chief of staff to now Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division.
Associate under independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for about 16 months.
Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, shortly before being appointed.
*Source: Washington Post
So, was it nepotism that led to her top-jefe appointment of the $4 billion a year agency?It may not have been; but the perception was certainly there.
These managers who resigned may have had their own reasons for doing so but right now the impression their employees have is that they sense a shift in the wind and are jumping ship."You take these guys, that’s over one hundred-some years of experience that’s being lost," said an ICE investigator. "That just decreases ICE even more."Apparently the resignations and transfers to CBP were abrupt. Out of six investigative groups, only two permanent supervisors will be left in the Tucson offices. The rest will have to be managed by investigators who suddenly find themselves working as supervisors.
"What I see is senior level manangers quitting and leaving my agency, all within a matter of weeks. That’s scary," the agent said.
-- Michael Marizco
