In his new role as Public Advocate, Lorenzen-Strait will report directly to ERO Director Gary Mead and will be responsible for:
- Assisting individuals and community stakeholders in addressing and
resolving complaints and concerns in accordance with agency policies
and operations, particularly concerns related to ICE enforcement actions
involving U.S. citizens; - Informing stakeholders on ERO policies, programs and initiatives, and enhance understanding of ERO’s mission and core values;
- Engaging stakeholders and building partnerships to facilitate
communication, foster collaboration and solicit input on immigration
enforcement initiatives and operations; and - Advising ICE leadership on stakeholder findings, concerns,
recommendations and priorities as they relate to improving immigration
enforcement efforts and activities.
The creation of the Public Advocate position is another milestone is
ICE’s ongoing work to enact significant policy changes and improvements
to focus the agency’s immigration enforcement resources on sensible
priorities that promote public safety, border security and the integrity
of the immigration system. In addition to implementing policies and
processes that ensure discretion is used in deciding the types of
individuals ICE prioritizes for removal from the country, the agency has
also embarked upon a long-term detention reform initiative. These
reform efforts are focused on prioritizing the health and safety of
detainees in our custody while increasing federal oversight and
improving the conditions of confinement within the detention system.
Obama Using Immigration to Bolster 2012 Campaign?
Michael Cutler, retired
INS Senior Special Agent, weighs in on the Obama Administration’s recent
tangle with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Benjamin Franklin, in discussing our then fledgeling nation, said that they had given us a republic if we could keep it!
What he was making clear was that this democratic republic required that its citizens take their citizenship seriously and keep the political leaders accountable.
It is time for the citizens of our nation to make certain that our nation’s leaders, on all levels, to come to terms with the fundamental fact that the purpose of our immigration laws is to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence has the potential to have a serious adverse impact. Ignoring those laws exposes our nation and our citizens to a variety of serious threats and challenges ranging from national security and criminal justice and public safety to the economy, the environment, healthcare and education!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!
For far too long our citizens demonstrated apathy which emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups.
It is therefore understandable that the politicians of both parties, are greatly concerned about the demonstrations currently sweeping our nation just as did the creation of the Tea Party. Clearly more and more of our fellow Americans are demonstrating that they are not as dumb as the politicians from both parties had expected us to be!
I am encouraged that more and more of us, We the People, are not willing to simply sit on the sidelines anymore!
If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
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On February 7, 2012, the Obama administration announced
that it had created the position of a “Public Advocate” for illegal
aliens who are described as “stakeholders!” Not surprisingly this
action has been decried by several important leaders in Washington:
Rep. Lamar Smith, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Steve
King a current member of the House Immigration Subcommittee and former
Ranking Member of that subcommittee have decried this as has the
president of the National Border Patrol Council, Shawn Moran, whose
organization represents the estimated 17,000 members of the United
States Border Patrol.
On February 8, 2012 the Washington Times published an article entitled: Border Patrol union decries hiring of immigrant ‘public advocate’
As you might anticipate, I share their consternation at this latest,
of a long list of other assaults, on the immigration system that is
supposed to enforce and administer our nation’s immigration laws.
Before we go any further, I want you understand just how important those
immigration laws are. I believe that this is important because if you
listen to the President, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
and a laundry list of politicians from both political parties in
Washington and on the local level in many cities and states, you would
likely think that immigration laws are a mere formality and an
impediment to the flow of people into the United States who are
essential to the profit of our companies and the expansion of our
faltering economy.
I hope to dispel those myths in short order.
Our immigration laws were promulgated to protect our nation and our
citizens from a wide array of aliens whose presence in our country would
be harmful or even dangerous. Simply stated, the goal of these laws is
to protect American lives and American jobs. Each year our nation
admits more than 1.1 million lawful immigrants who, on the day that they
are admitted are immediately placed on a pathway to United States
citizenship. This is a level of lawful immigration that eclipses any
other nation on the face of the planet- and this “lawful” system is
beset by fraud that permeates the system and goes unchecked.
“Immigration Anarchists” insist that illegal aliens are doing the
work Americans won’t do. Meanwhile, each and every day, Americans who
are fortunate enough to have jobs, trudge off to work in coal mines,
steel foundries, construction sites and other places where the work they
do is dangerous, filthy and back-breaking. My dad was one of those
hard working construction workers who helped to build this country back
then and those tradesmen of the construction industries continue to
build this country to this very day! They embody the “Can-do spirit”
that was seen as the embodiment of the American work ethic where no
challenge was too great!
Some time ago when Doris Meissner was the Commissioner of the old INS
(Immigration and Naturalization Service) and I was an INS Special
Agent, Doris repeated told us that we needed to be “customer oriented.”
I actually agreed that we needed to be customer oriented; however, we
disagreed as to who the “customer” was! She thought that our customers
were illegal aliens and, believe it or not, I naively thought that our
customers were the citizens of the United States. (Wasn’t that what
President Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he so eloquently said that
ours was a government “of the people, by the people and for the
people?”)
Now the Obama administration is focused on addressing the concerns of
illegal aliens and is providing a public advocate, at public expense,
declaring these illegal aliens to be “stakeholders” while his
administration goes after states that dare to promulgate and enforce
their own immigration laws that parallel federal immigration laws that
the federal government refuses to enforce. Any such state, can, in
fact, expect a visit from Attorney General Holder or at least one of his
attorneys in conjunction with a lawsuit! When did American citizens
stop being “stakeholders” where the effective enforcement of our
immigration laws is concerned?
The President and member of Congress, on both sides of the political
aisle, have openly advocated that illegal aliens who violate the
inspections process and immigration laws that are intended to protect
our nation should be granted a pathway to United States citizenship!
Does this not undermine the lawful immigration system and make a mockery
of it?
If so much concern is being espoused by the President of the United
States to provide all sorts of benefits to illegal aliens, why should
any foreign national seek to enter the United States legally? What is
the point to having a legal pathway to entry into our country and a
legal mechanism to provide aliens who seek to immigrate to the United
States when illegal aliens are likely to be treated as well, if not
better, than aliens who abide by our nation’s laws?
The President, many politicians and many of the “talking head”
political pundits are quick to talk about the “Hispanic Vote” and how
the only way to win that vote is to provide pathways to citizenship for
illegal aliens, as though Americans of Hispanic origins favor
lawlessness! What an insult to our fellow Americans! If you want to
talk about profiling and bigotry, this is about as bad as it gets!
Why on earth would any American, of any race, religion or ethnicity
want to see lawless conduct rewarded? Not only is this an affront to
their morals but an affront to their intelligence!
Every alien who is provided with employment authorization represents a
competitor for an American job, which so many Americans desperately
need to support themselves and prevent their homes from being lost to
foreclosure! In point of fact, American minorities are the most likely
to lose their jobs to aliens! The most likely victims of transnational
gang members are, in fact the members of America’s immigrant
communities!
These assertions about the way to win the mythical “Hispanic vote” is
as false as are the claims that Americans come in two categories-
Americans who are too lazy to do the hard, physically demanding jobs and
too stupid to do the “hi-tech” jobs!
Title 8, United States Code, Section 1324,
is contained within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), that in
part, deems it a felony to aid, abet, encourage or induce aliens to
enter our country illegally or remain in our country illegally.
Consider this excerpt from that section of law:
(iii) knowing or in reckless
disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in
the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields
from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from
detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means
of transportation;
(iv) encourages or induces an alien
to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in
reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence
is or will be in violation of law…
Certainly any person in our country who is subject to arrest should
be treated appropriately and fairly, however, the time has come for our
government to recognize its obligations to the citizens of the United
States. The divisive rhetorical and assertions by our “leaders” and
supposed journalists must end and be replaced by an understanding that
immigration laws are among the most essential for the protection of our
nation and our citizens. The fact that states that seek to enforce
immigration laws get sued by the federal government while states that
show open contempt for these vital immigration laws and create
“sanctuary” policies that clearly violate the above-noted law
nevertheless, face no consequences for obstructing the enforcement of
these law turns logic and reason on its head, and this must, for once
and for all stop- for the good of America and for the good of all Americans!
