Sessions: Obama's DHS may have retaliated against immigration officers who enforced laws

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) speaks on the floor of the United States Senate

WASHINGTON — The Senate Immigration Subcommittee led by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has launched an investigation into whether the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland security retaliated against immigration officers for simply doing their jobs and enforcing the law.

In February of this year, President Obama said during a televised town hall meeting that there could be “consequences” for immigration enforcement officers who are not willing to ignore immigration statutes on the books in favor of the president’s executive actions.

“There may be individual officials or Border Patrol who aren’t paying attention to our new directives,” the president said. “But they’re going to be answerable to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, because he’s been very clear about what our priorities should be… If somebody is working for ICE and there is a policy and they don’t follow the policy, there are going to be consequences to it.”

Sessions’ subcommittee on Tuesday sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson criticizing the president’s remarks and asking for insight into whether he had taken any disciplinary action against any immigration officials for enforcing the law.

An excerpt from the letter reads as follows:

Not only do the President’s statements ignore the plain language of several immigration statutes that command DHS personnel to take certain actions relating to illegal aliens, the comments seem to comport with a pattern and practice of threats toward DHS personnel who seek to fulfill their duties under the law. Such statements also illustrate why morale levels among DHS personnel continue to remain near the bottom of all federal entities.

Indeed, we are aware of multiple allegations of targeting and retaliation against DHS personnel who refuse to comply with this Administration’s willful disregard of our immigration laws—such as allegations made in lawsuits filed in federal court by an award-winning ICE attorney and by a group of 10 ICE officers and agents. President of the National ICE Council Chris Crane has said that agency leadership is “punishing law enforcement officers who are just trying to uphold U.S. law,” and is “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 . . . either taking a disciplinary action [or] threat[ening] disciplinary action.” Earlier this month, Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council (Local 3307) Chris Cabrera testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that:

“[Border Patrol] agents who repeatedly report groups [of aliens] larger than 20 face retribution. Management will either take them out of the field and assign them to processing detainees at the station or assign them to a fixed position in low volume areas as punishment. Needless to say agents got the message and now stay below this 20 person threshold no matter the actual size of the group.”

Sessions’ subcommittee asked Secretary Johnson to respond by April 13, 2015 with a description of any disciplinary actions that have been taken against immigration enforcement personnel in the last six years, as well as details of “the authority upon which [DHS] will rely to penalize Department personnel for their failure to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional order.”