Transparency at the U.S. Congress and Immigration & Customs Enforcement

Transparency at the U.S. Congress and Immigration & Customs Enforcement

After witnessing how disorganized our federal government is in the appropriation of tax-payers’ monies and the misuse of the same, plus the fact that our U.S. Congress; both the members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives tend to be selected as to who they are willing to help and assist: a lobbyist or a hardworking little guy American citizen with no connections at the White House or at the Hill, I feel compelled to write this story after several hours of reflection during our traditional 4^th of July – Independence Day.

I have compared some U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s agencies in terms of the number of employees they have, HQ’s leadership positions, and budget. I also compared the FBI and DEA, both agencies under the U.S. Department of Justice against ICE, CBP, TSA, and US Secret Service. I found some very interesting and remarkable facts: ICE considering the mediocre task of enforcing for the most part administrative immigration enforcement tasks, has 5,000 employees, the highest number of “leaders” at its HQ is 26 and a budget of $5 billion. In contrast, the FBI has 30,847 employees with a $6.04 billion budget. I decided to compare ICE and the FBI in terms of what they do and accomplishments, their offices located overseas, their number of employees and the size of their budget. I had to take a deep breath when I saw the difference between these two federal law enforcement agencies, along with their reputation and professionalism.

Comparing the FBI with ICE is like comparing literally oil and water, or apples and oranges. The FBI’s basically brings “filet mignon” to the table in terms of quality investigations and prosecutions, while ICE…..well how can I put it, ICE only brings “ground beef” – In short, there is no comparison between these two agencies in terms of the quality, education and professionalism of their special agents…and the foremost important fact: the average type of criminal case the FBI prosecute and their professionalism when conducting terrorist, spy, corruption, organized crime, corporate fraud, and a number of other unique complex criminal investigations and subsequent indictments and convictions cannot and will never be compared to the investigations that ICE is currently involved with.

However, I must point out that corruption and “bad apples” can be found in any federal agency including the FBI. But regardless, the Director of the FBI and its leadership normally run a very tight ship. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about ICE. ICE has a very poor and inept Assistant Secretary, Julie Myers and the agency is permeated with incompetent leaders at HQ and some ICE’s SACs that if they were to be “vetted” by an independent agency such as the FBI, the majority would probably fail.

Thus, the question remains, why the U.S. Congress and U.S. Senator Charles Grassley’s Finance Committee keeps funding ICE? Where is the oversight?

The reader must keep in mind that I may be biased when I write about ICE because while I do my best in uncovering something positive information to report, I cannot find anything worthwhile to report but only mediocre enforcement initiatives, such as raiding a public middle school and searching students’ backpacks for drugs or executing federal search warrants and arresting and deporting not only masses of illegal aliens, but also U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident immigrants. As one of my Legacy U.S. Customs Service RAC told me one day; “the reason I don’t recommend my agents for special awards, is that I don’t believe in awarding them with ‘extra bonuses’ when they are getting already paid for what they are expected to do…make criminal cases.” Sorry my former fellow Legacy INS and U.S. Customs Service co-workers. It is not your fault that your ICE’s special agent in charge came from the Legacy U.S. Customs and not from INS and has no clue about immigration enforcement.

What we are witnessing in here is a political chaos that is about to blow like a balloon full of water, thanks to the Bush administration and the 110^th U.S. Congress.

My hope is that our loyal Narco News readers, when facing a personal problem with a particular federal agency, or a U.S. Senator, or House of Representative, they will know who to contact in order to receive some solution to their particular problem.

Our federal rank and file employees know pretty much that contacting their own agency’s internal affairs unit is like sealing their own future with a “kiss of death” – The agency will retaliate against the employee for filing a complaint.

If the government employee contacts his/her local U.S. House of Representative or U.S. Senator, chances that the complaint with the employee’s name will be given to the employee’s agency as a “congressional inquiry.” Other option an employee has is to file a grievance, a discrimination complaint, or a whistleblower complaint, which ultimately would bring the same result, retaliation and discrimination against the employee.

The average American Citizen or a lawful permanent immigrant when contact his/her local U.S. House of Representative or U.S. Senator, usually receives no assistance at all, or receives only a “lip service.” Unless of course, the individual asking for assistance is a relative of the federal lawmaker, or is a lobbyist, and/or a big money contributor to the personal bank account of the lawmaker, which sometimes results with the demise of the lawmaker and subsequent indictment and conviction for corruption related charges. I am a big fan of the FBI for investigating federal lawmakers who are basically “on the take” – The FBI is doing a good job in this area, but much remains to be done in this area.

For example, as a concerned American Citizen and tax-payer you should be aware how the U.S. government, with the approval of the U.S. Congress appropriate billions of dollars to federal agencies.

Customs and Border Protection

Employees: 56,000 or more

Leadership Positions at HQ: 21

Budget: $9.3 billion

Citizenship & Naturalization Service

Employees: 15,000

Leadership Positions at HQ: 13

Budget: 1.9 billion

Generated Revenue: 2.3 billion in FY 2007

Transportation Security Administration

Employees: 43,000 or more

Leadership Positions at HQ: 16

Budget: $7.1 billion

Immigration & Customs Enforcement:

Employees: 15,000 or more

Leadership Positions at HQ: 26

Budget: 5 billions

U.S. Secret Service:

Employees: 6,600 or more

Leadership Positions at HQ: unknown

Budget: 1.4 billion

Non-DHS Agency

Federal Bureau of Investigation:

Employees: 30,847 or more

Leadership Positions at HQ: 42 or more (this number may reflect top managers assigned to offices outside HQ)

Budget: 6.04 billions

Drug Enforcement Administration:

Employees: 10,759

Leadership Positions at HQ: 8 or more

Budget: 2.3 billions

To report government corruption against any federal, state, county, local, agency, department or entity (Executive, Legislative or Judicial) private corporate fraud, or a multitude of crimes which are under the FBI’s jurisdiction contact the nearest FBI office or at:

Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

Telephone (202) 324-3000

www.fbi.gov

The allegations of corruption you need to report to the FBI is if you have knowledge about any questionable relationship between any member of the U.S. Senate, House of Representative, or any federal, state, county or local government employee with any alleged or suspected member of a drug cartel, terrorist organization, or organized criminal syndicate. For example, if you know that a particular lawmaker or a U.S. border inspector or any federal criminal investigator is living above his reasonable means, yet he owns a mansion, owns two or three expensive luxury cars such as a BMW, Mercedes Benz etc., I strongly suggest you contact your local FBI agent. Why I don’t encourage you to contact the GAO, or respective agency’s own internal affairs units – very simple, I don’t trust them. These agencies’ internal affairs are good in conducting misusing the agency car, misuse of the government credit card, such as paying with the credit card for a hotel room during non-government business, made a minor mistake when writing a report of investigation, the employee called his supervisor a “bully” or disobeyed an unlawful order etc. (they go through very great lengths to prove an allegation).

Following is a list of other private non-profit organizations that you may want to contact instead if you are afraid of being in contact with our U.S. government agents:

Open Secrets

http://www.opensecrets.org/

Government Accountability Project

http://www.whistleblower.org/template/index.cfm

Political Money Line

http://moneyline.cq.com/pml/home.do

Source Watch

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch

Center for Media and Democracy - PR Watch

http://www.prwatch.org/

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

http://www.citizensforethics.org/

Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=CCAGW_homepage

Global Integrity Report

http://report.globalintegrity.org/

Porkbusters

http://porkbusters.org/

CorpWatch

http://www.corpwatch.org/index.php

Public Citizen

http://www.citizen.org/index.cfm

Common Cause

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=186966

Project on Government Oversight

http://www.pogo.org/index.shtml

Transparency International

http://www.transparency.org/

Sources:

http://www.cbp.gov

http://www.tsa.gov

http://www.ice.gov

http://www.uscis.gov

http://www.dhs.gov

http://www.secretservice.gov

http://www.fbi.gov

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5234

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Bureau_of_Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement