A veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is facing suspension after he refused to release an illegal immigrant who was not considered a priority target under the Obama Administration’s new immigration enforcement policies, according to documents provided exclusively to Fox News.
“They’re punishing law enforcement officers who are just trying to uphold U.S. law,” said Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council. Crane is a union representative acting on the unidentified officer’s behalf.
The officer under fire is an 18-year law enforcement and military veteran.
On March 27 he and another officer were conducting surveillance on a vehicle in Newark, Del. with plates that were registered to a criminal alien target. During the surveillance, they observed an individual get into the vehicle. The person was detained, questioned and taken to an ICE office so that his fingerprints could be run through a federal database.
The individual was not their criminal alien target. However, he was a 35-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who had ten previous traffic violations – including driving without a license.
“The officer made the determination using prosecutorial discretion that he would charge (the suspect) as being in the United States illegally and let the judge sort it out,” Crane said.
“That’s our place in the universe,” he said. “We’re supposed to make arrests and let the judges and the legal system sort through the details.”
Instead, two supervising officers, including the acting field director, intervened and ordered the officer to release the illegal immigrant. The acting field director sat down with the illegal and explained that he was going to be let go because he was not a “presidential priority,” Crane said.
“They’re willing to take away their retirement, their job, their ability to support their families in favor of someone who is here illegally and violating our laws,” Crane told Fox News. “Right now (the Obama administration) is standing in the way of us enforcing the law by either taking a disciplinary action, threats of disciplinary action, or refusing to sign off on charging documents to put an illegal alien into immigration proceedings so a judge can sort it out.”
