ICE Union Head: Administration Won’t Let Us Do Our Jobs

The Obama administration is deliberately blocking the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to question and detain persons suspected of being criminal illegal aliens, according to ICE union head Chris Crane.

Crane spoke on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio on Friday to discuss the growing tension between ICE and the federal government.  According to Crane, “If we see someone we suspect of being in the country illegally, we think maybe they’re a gang member or a criminal, we’re not permitted to make an arrest as Congress has given us the authority to do so. We have to wait until they commit a crime and another law enforcement agency arrests them and puts them in jail before we can even talk to the immigration agents.”

“This administration has completely tied our hands. Our arrest numbers, our deportation numbers, regardless of the information that’s out there, are plummeting. The administration is completely lying to the American public about everything that we’re doing,” he said.

Illegal aliens are aware that the federal government is quietly working in their favor, Crane says.  “We hear them coaching one another on how to lie to us. They don’t think we speak their languages and we hear them coaching one another on how to lie to ICE agents to evade arrest, and we still can’t do anything about it.”

Stopped from carrying out their duties and their protests ignored by both the Obama administration and the Senate’s Gang of Eight, fed-up ICE agents, including Crane, have filed a lawsuit against the government. Its goal, he says, is to simply “let us do [our] job. Let us enforce the laws that are on the books.” Crane and his fellow ICE-agents fear that without enforcement, national security will be threatened in the future by an onslaught of millions of new illegal immigrants.

“The President’s place is to enforce the laws enacted by Congress. And this President is not doing that. They’re picking and choosing which laws they will and will not enforce. They’re actually implementing their own laws so to speak, their own de facto laws, such as the DREAM Act.”

Listen to the full interview here.