An Open Letter for U.S. President Barack Obama Regarding Racial Profiling in the United States

An Open Letter for U.S. President Barack Obama Regarding Racial Profiling in the United States.

July 31, 2009

President Barack Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am a retired federal law enforcement officer. When I was forced out into retirement on March 3, 2006 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subordinate agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, I was 51. Because I decided to exercise my U.S. Constitutional Rights by filing a class action complaint of discrimination in 1995 with the EEOC in Detroit, Michigan and on May 10, 2002, in U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C. my fate was sealed. In 2007, our Hispanic class action suit got dismissed on one issue: Pattern and Practice Claim. Some members decided to pursue their cases by filing individual EEO complaints at the EEOC. However, I don’t know who is in charge at the EEOC under your administration, under different U.S. Presidents, American taxpayers used to get our letters or telephone calls answered by some federal agencies, now, very seldom a letter is answered.

I, like millions of Blacks, Hispanics. Asians and any minority in the United States share and believe in the same dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”…”But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

You already appointed our former governor, Ms. Janet Napolitano to be the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She is also a former U.S. Attorney. In turn she has made some appointments of some sub-cabinet political appointments, such as Assistant Secretary John T. Morton, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He is another U.S. Department of Justice attorney

It is time for some serious reflection on the administration's part and starting revamping DHS and all of its subordinate agencies with a major emphasis at ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Enforcement (USCIS). After all this is what you promised to us when you were a U.S. Presidential candidate: CHANGES.

I don’t know about my fellow Americans, Mr. President but I don’t like to see the changes I am witnessing; seeing you and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano issuing executive decrees or making a commentary on how you perceived the actions of the Cambridge police as “stupidly” only to later on changing your mind and publicly admit that you should have been more diplomatic with your words. One can only wonder if we have a vacillating President. You already admitted that we do have a problem with racial profiling. This is the core of this report, plus the subject of gross misconduct and gross mismanagement.

Having been a police officer myself with the Lansing , Michigan police department and being Hispanic and bullied hundreds of times by White Black and Brown law enforcement officers almost all my life, I know deep in my heart that Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley has some personal problems not only dealing with people of different color but with authority. There was no reason for the James Crowley’s camp to threaten you by saying that you were going to regret your words. As to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano v. ICE SAC Leigh Winchell; as one observer reviewer wrote on an Internet blogger: “The answer is clear. This raid occurred without Napolitano's knowledge. Some cowboy and I am suspecting it is Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the ICE regional office in Seattle. He decided to proceed with the raid. He was pushing the envelope, making a statement. He is challenging Napolitano.”

I became a police officer in Lansing, Michigan in 1978 and in 1981 I joined the U.S. government as a special agent. In 1984, as a GS-1811-07 I was investigating federal public corruption in Arizona. Then in 1995 to 1999, I was appointed as a Resident Agent in Charge, GS-1811-14 with the Legacy U.S. Customs Service. In 1998 I made the Best Qualified List (BQL) twice for the Special Agent in Charge position GS-1811-15, Office of Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, Los Angeles, CA and both times, the announcement was cancelled.

In circa 1979 at around 2 am, Los Angeles, California around the central bus greyhound station,  as a police officer and away from home (Lansing, Michigan) my girl friend who was White, and I walked against a don't walk sign, as we were being targeted and followed by three thugs.  Suddenly a black and white Los Angeles police car made a U-turn and blocked our pathway.  The normal and routine questions followed with a request for a photo identification.  We both produced our Michigan Driver's license.  The senior officer a very big man swinging his police baton in our faces, told us that he was going to gives us two traffic tickets for running a red light on foot.  We explained our situation, we were in our way to San Diego, CA , we were very tired froma direct long flight from Detroit, MI to LAX; plus the fact tha we were being harassed and followed by three thugs.  They were long gone.  The officer seemed not moved by our story and asked us to sign the tickets.  After I signed my ticket, he did not like the way I signed.  He got ver upset.  He told me if i did not spell out my name, that he was going to arrest me.  He then turn to my girlfriend, who was blond and young (college age); he asked, about you sweetheart show me your signature.  My girlfriend exploded.  She yelled; don't call my sweetheart.  The two officers, the second officer was Asian.  pulled their handcuffs and as a last resort, I pulled my badge and credential.  The big officer's comment was; I don't give s---- who you are....and more obsene language.  It took me some persuasion and basically asked for clemency.  At the end, we got out tickets and got to San Diego, CA early in the morning.

From the time I filed my first complaint of discrimination until I retired, I suffered a series of discrimination, retaliation, harassment, hostile working environment, bullying and mobbing by the Legacy U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Internal Revenue, and trumpeted internal investigations by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General, and the Customs’ Office of Internal Affairs.

After my retirement I became involved in your campaign for the U.S. Presidency because you promised to bring changes, transparency and accountability within our federal work force. For some reasons we are having less transparency and less accountability.

One of the reasons is that now more than ever, federal agencies simply ignore our complaints. Complaints of gross misconduct and gross mismanagement are being ignored as before or with more frequency.

I call to your attention the number of investigative reports by my co-publisher Bill Conroy of Narco News, titled: The House of Death: U.S. Law Enforcement Complicity with Murder in Ciudad Juarez.

http://www.narconews.com/houseofdeath/

Another piece of outstanding investigative reporting and documentation by Bill Conroy is titled: Borderline Security: A chronicle of reprisal, cronyism and corruption in the U.S. Customs Service.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue32/article893.html

On August 19, 2000, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Judicial, Criminal Law and Social Justice Committee members sent a letter to Commissioner of Customs Raymond W. Kelly. The letter was regarding the class action suit filed by Hispanic Special Agents styled Miguel A. Contreras, et al. v. Lawrence H. Summers.

The No Fear Act

Under the No Fear Act, of all of the worst agencies to post their No Fear Act statistics is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If ICE fails to submit its quarterly reports every of its No Fear Act statistics within the required time and in accordance with our federal statutes, it shows that laws, policy, rules and procedures can be broken. Unfortunately by setting such bad example, it invites contempt for our federal laws, it invites corruption.

Mr. President Obama, we have the same problems that we had for years. However, I must admit that Customs and later ICE promoted more Hispanics and several of them grades GS-1811-14, and GS-1811-15s, and to Senior Executive Series; unfortunately they carried some very heavy luggage that instead of serving as positive role models, they might as well appear in TV police shows such as Law & Order as sexual perverts and cruel and abusive police dictators. I also know for fact that some Hispanic members of the class decided to withdraw their names from the membership active list, some of them gave some personal reasons. The truth may never be known but the fact is that these former class members received promotions and/or were assigned to foreign offices after their names were taken off.

In our Customs–ICE class action lawsuit I paid a very high price for standing for what I believe to be the right thing to do. Congress passed the discrimination and whistleblower provisions and the U.S. President signed into law. Federal employees are required by law to report any misconduct or mismanagement, yet when they do file a report, the agency retaliates against the employee who is following the law.

We lost our class action lawsuits, but those who stayed in the course regardless of all of the harassment and unsubtle retaliation, our rewards will be given to us later on, because after all, we won the race and won the battle.

I will be presenting to you a letter written to former Customs Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly on behalf of our former class action lawsuit written by a group of LULAC leaders. For some class members, this will be the first time they will be reading this letter.

The Letter (Customs Commissioner)

August 19, 2000

Mr. Raymond W. Kelly

Commissioner of Customs

U.S. Customs Service

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20229

“Dear Mr. Commissioner:

It is with great sadness that we write to you today to officially inform you of the fact that the general assembly of LULAC, at its yearly national convention, held in Washington, D.C., unanimously passed a resolution in support of the Class Action Lawsuit that has been filed, against the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, by Special Agents of the U.S. Customs Service. The Class Action Lawsuit was filed because of acts of discrimination against the special agents, perpetrated by the Service, in the office of investigations (OI) and internal affairs (IA) that include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. A Consistent pattern of failing to promote Hispanic officers in spite of the fact that they have consistently made the best qualified list (BQL), in the case of some agents, over thirty (30) times.

2. A distinct pattern, by the Service, of instituting bogus investigations into the conduct of Hispanic agents and, particularly, into the conduct of the special agents who are members of the class action. It appears that this has been done because of the agents’ lawful use of the EEO process and because of their participation in the class action.

3. The use by the Service of racial profiling in order to discriminate against Hispanic agents; and to deny them promotions, that they were qualified to receive, time and time again.

4. Numerous acts of retaliation that members of the class action have suffered at the hands of the Service because of the agents’ participation in the class action lawsuit.

5. Repeated investigations that have been instituted against members of the class, internally, in an effort to attack and diminish from their credibility, and in an effort to humiliate them.

6. Numerous Acts of harassment by the Service, through its supervisors and others, in what appears to be a concerted effort to lower the morale of the members of the class and to serve as an example to others.

All of these nefarious activities against our Hispanic agents have taken place during your tenure as Commissioner. Hispanic Agents have not been promoted, in violation of their rights, because they indicates was done on the basis of their race were denied promotions, in what documentary evidence indicates was done on the basis of their race. Most, if not all, of the members of the class members have also made the SES list, all to no avail. LULAC views all of the above listed acts as being in violation of law, unquestionable and in direct violation of the President’s express commitment to the contrary.

As we are sure you are aware, President Clinton promised the American people in general and LULAC, in particular, that his Cabinet and all other departments under the Executive Branch of the Government would reflect the diversity of the country. The President promised that neither racial profiling nor any form of discrimination would be tolerated by his administration. Apparently, the promise made by the President of the United States has been neither heard nor honored by the U.S. Customs Service. It is absurd to tell the Hispanic Special Agents that they can go out to the field and take a bullet in the performance of their duties and to then tell them that they are not good enough to take a promotion, when they come back into the office, all while working for the U.S. Customs Service.

We know that you have a long standing relationship with the President and, as such you know of his deep commitment to the issues of promoting diversity, fairness and equality for all Americans. We do not want to believe that you would knowingly and intentionally engage in or allow others, who serve under you, to fail to promote Hispanic Special Agents in the office of internal affairs (IA) and the office of investigations (OI) because of their race or motional origin.

LULAC has been monitoring the class action for the last five years and had hoped that you would take action to correct the injustices that have taken place against the members of the class. Instead of taking corrective action, the Agency has chosen to appeal, appeal and appeal in an effort to thwart the certification of the class. Ultimately, the class has been certified and is currently in the discovery process. Recently, a Hispanic agent won a jury verdict in Laredo, Texas and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in another case agent against the Service, has upheld a jury verdict in favor of a Customs agent in California. Both of the cases involved the issue of discrimination or retaliation against the agents by the U.S. Customs Service. An African American agent also won a case against the Service for discrimination that he had to endure. Those cases were filed by individual agents and are in addition to the class action, which is the subject of this letter.

How many cases will be required to be filled before the Service recognizes that a problem with racial profiling and discrimination agents of color exists and that remedial action on your part, is required in order to stop acts of terrorism, hate crimes and bogus investigations against our Hispanic agents by their supervisors and others in the office of internal affairs of the Service?

The Hispanic special agents are no longer standing alone. LULAC is now standing with them; and as such, we ask that you immediately issue a cease and desist order; on any and all pending investigations against members of the class action.

For more than five hundred (500) years the Latino people have been engaged in a struggle against discrimination. It is a shame that we should still be engaged in that same struggle in the year 2000 against various departments of our own Government. What confidence can we have that the U.S. Customs Service is not engaged in racial profiling and targeting of the Latino people in its investigations when the evidence is so overwhelming that the Service is engaged in racial profiling when it discriminates against its own Hispanic special agents?

Complaints from Hispanic U.S. Customs Service agents continue to pour into LULAC. The situation between the Service and its treatment of people of color has reached the outer limits of what is acceptable and it is now time for us to take action.

LULAC was there to support Hispanic FBI agents when they filed class action against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). LULAC is now supporting the Class action filed by agents of the U.S. Customs Service and we will be there, also, to support the class action in the process of being filed by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF).

You are in a unique position to leave a legacy of bigotry, intolerance, insensitivity and discrimination, or you can leave a legacy of fairness, equality and justice and of being a champion for the Hispanic People, as Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service. The choice is yours, but we would hope that you would choose to leave the latter rather than the former. To this end, we offer to make ourselves available to you in order to assist you in finding a favorable resolution to the problem of institutionalized racism within the Service. We urge you to sit down with us and with a representative, designated by the class, to solve this tragedy that continues to reign supreme within the Service.

The special agents who are members of the class action are heroes to our people, to LULAC and so they should be viewed by you, if you are a man of fairness and worthy of the great honor that the President has bestowed upon you by the President in appointing you to the position of trust that you now hold.

Do not let President Clinton, yourself, the agency of the Service who look to you for justice, nor LULAC, down on this issue Mr. Kelly.

LULAC remains ever vigilant in matters that involve discrimination, violations of civil rights and other acts that can truly be considered as hate crimes against Hispanic communities and all people of color.

Neither LULAC nor the Hispanic agents, who are members of the class, are asking for any kind of special consideration. All we want is justice, fairness and an even playing field where discrimination, on the basis of race, is eradicated. It is our goal and we live for the day when, if bigotry is to be found at all, will be found only in the history books as one of the most painful chapters of America’s past.

Hoping to hear from you soon and trusting that you will do the right thing by stopping the harassment of the class members and making every effort to settle this case by promoting our Hispanic agents and doing everything necessary to make things right by the agents and their families who have suffered enough, we remain

//s// //s//

Rosa Rosales, V.P. for Women Julie Marquez, Chairman

National LULAC Board

//s// //s//

Henry Rodriguez, District Director Jaime Martinez

District XV Secretary-Treasurer

IUE, AFL-CIO

Cc:

William J. Clinton, President

Al Gore, Vice President

Janet Reno, Attorney General

Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Congressional Black Caucus

I doubt Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, U.S. Customs Service, did anything regarding the fact that LULAC supported the Class Action Lawsuit filed by Hispanic Special Agents, employed by the Service, as a result of racial profiling, discrimination in the promotion of Hispanic agents, based on their race, acts of retaliation against members of the class because of their lawful use of the EEO process and the targeting of people of color in investigations conducted by the Service. According to Ms Julie Marquez of LULAC and the drafter of the letter to Raymond Kelly, Kelly or any Customs staffer answered.

Before Kelly came on board as Customs Commissioner, we had other acting commissioners such as Michael H. Lane, Charles W. Windwood. Later when Jay Ahearn; along with several of his cronies from the Miami, Florida area went to Customs’ headquarters severe moral problems started to develop. In other Narco News reports, I believe this group of top U.S. Customs officials had some have luggage with them. Thus I ask Mr. President Obama, why getting the best scholars with J.D. degrees who know of no sins and know nothing about managing a law enforcement organization. It was one those acting commissioners who used to ask year after year to my U.S. Customs regional EEO manager, which was the hottest flag; the EEO manager always brought up the subject of the Hispanic class action lawsuit. For the most part Customs tried to settle all non Hispanic class action lawsuit or individual EEO complaints.

According to estimates, the Customs Hispanic Class Action lawsuit put a big dent on the funds of the U.S. Customs Service (actually American taxpayers’ dollars) and the money spent by the various law firms that took an interest and became involved in our class action.

We are in possession of documentary evidence which clearly shows that all of the above mentioned shameful activities have taken place during the tenure of Mr. Kelly as Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service. How could this happen under a Democratic administration, particularly when you promised us that no discrimination or racial profiling of any kind would be tolerated under your administration? Within your administration you have some senior advisors such as Lawrence Henry Summers who is currently the Director of the White House's National Economic Council and who served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from July 2, 1999 to January 20, 2001. Summers has some luggage dealing with sexual and other types racial discrimination.

In the early 2000’s ATF special agents filed a class action complaint because of racial profiling and discrimination against them and, it appears that DEA and Secret Service agents are learning in the same direction because of the same reasons i.e. discrimination and racial profiling. The case involving the Customs Service is so egregious that we urge you to intercede at once! The class action filed by agents of the U.S, Customs is styled Contreras, et al Plaintiffs and the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury is the defendant. The Hispanic men and women who work for the Service need your help and we are seeking you to intercede on their behalf, at once.

Racial profiling is an insidious problem which is robbing us of professionals of color within the Government, in positions of power, who could then be of great assistance in insuring that racial profiling does not continue to occur on the other end, that is to say, that the targets of investigations, by the Government, are conducted evenhandedly and not as a result of racial profiling.

LULAC wrote the posted letter to Mr. Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner, U.S. Customs Service, in the hope that he would have dealt with the series issues issue of racial profiling, as of this date they have not.

The class action lawsuit filed by this writer, who is of Hispanic origin and as a special agent criminal investigator, GS-1811-13 of the U.S. Customs Service due to racial profiling and other acts of discrimination, retaliation, harassment, defamation of character, and frivolous and trumpeted internal investigations instituted by the hatred good-old-boy system and instituted against members of the class action continue to this day.

Please direct Secretary Ms. Janet Napolitano to stop the never ending systematic discrimination, harassment, retaliation, uneven-handed imposition of discipline upon all DHS employees, regardless of title, rank or grade.

We encourage you to sign an Executive Order on directing all law enforcement officers to stop using racial profiling as police investigative tool, that numerous civil rights organizations have asked prior sitting U.S. Presidents to sign. To their voices we add ours. To their plea for help, we add ours.

The insidious practice of racial profiling that is in place within the various departments of the Government from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Border Patrol, FBI, DEA, ATF and others is shameful, disconcerting, sad, outrageous and we call upon you to end it, immediately!

Mr. President, we in the communities of color have stood by you when it mattered. Now we call upon you to stand with us. Sign the Executive Order outlawing racial profile now. We await your reply.

Thanking you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter, we remain,

Sincerely,

//s//

Miguel Angel Contreras

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C." – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

REFERENCE READING MATERIAL

The No Fear Act

Under the No Fear Act, of all of the worst agencies to post their No Fear Act statistics is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “Pursuant to Title II of the No FEAR Act, federal agencies, no later than 180 days after the end of each fiscal year, are required to submit an annual report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate, the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives, each committee of Congress with jurisdiction relating to the agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Attorney General. The No FEAR Act Annual Report shall have specific information relating to each agency’s EEO complaints activity (including federal district court cases) and resulting disciplinary actions, Judgment Fund reimbursements, adjustments to agency budgets to meet reimbursement requirements, as well as an analysis of trends, causation, and practical knowledge gained through experience.” – www.ice.gov

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Questions and Answers: No FEAR Act

Q: What is the No FEAR Act?

A: The Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act) became effective on October 1, 2003. The Act imposes additional duties upon Federal agency employers intended to reinvigorate their longstanding obligation to provide a work environment free of discrimination and retaliation.

Q: What are the new duties that the No FEAR Act places on a Federal agency?

A: The additional obligations contained in the No FEAR Act can be broken down into five categories.

A Federal agency must reimburse the Judgment Fund for payments made to employees, former employees, or applicants for Federal employment because of actual or alleged violations of Federal employment discrimination laws, Federal whistleblower protection laws, and retaliation claims arising from the assertion of rights under those laws.

An agency must provide annual notice to its employees, former employees, and applicants for Federal employment concerning the rights and remedies applicable to them under the employment discrimination and whistleblower protection laws.

At least every two years, an agency must provide training to its employees, including managers, regarding the rights and remedies available under the employment discrimination and whistleblower protection laws.

An agency must submit to Congress, EEOC, the Department of Justice, and OPM, an annual report setting forth information about the agency's efforts to improve compliance with the employment discrimination and whistleblower protection laws and detailing the status of complaints brought against the agency under these laws.

An agency must post quarterly on its public Web site summary statistical data pertaining to EEO complaints filed with the agency.

Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/nofear/qanda.html

Commentary: Open executive ranks to more Hispanics

By JORGE E. PONCE

February 08, 2009

After various Office of Personnel Management plans, an array of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission management directives, multiple Supreme Court decisions and a plethora of blue-ribbon commissions, tiger teams and reports, Hispanics remain underrepresented in the federal government.

It’s time to reflect on measures that will transform the federal workforce into one that looks like the face of America.

The disability community succeeded in getting Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, which overturned multiple Supreme Court decisions that narrowed the definition of a qualified person with a disability — thus, expanding the definition of a disability and increasing the applicant pool of this equal employment opportunity group. Now it’s time that the civil rights community take up a similar approach to get Congress to replace a 1995 Supreme Court decision, the so-called Adarand decision.

This decision imposed a stricter burden of scrutiny for federal affirmative action programs for African-Americans and Hispanics. Since Adarand did not apply to women, affirmative action programs for them are judged by an intermediate burden of scrutiny. To add to the confusion, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 calls for the creation of goals to recruit persons with disabilities. In order to have clarity and fairness for all equal employment opportunity groups, all affirmative action programs must be judged by the same standards. To make progress with Hispanic recruitment, this recommendation is essential. Why? If federal agencies were allowed to establish goals for hiring Hispanics, and were allowed to impose an intermediate standard to measure their affirmative action initiatives, it would be easier to hold managers more accountable.

Hispanics are underrepresented at all grades in the federal sector. Hispanics represented 7.8 percent of the federal workforce, compared to 13.3 percent in the civilian labor force in fiscal 2007. This challenge should be addressed across the board, but immediate attention should be given to Hispanic representation at the senior executive level — where decisions are made and budgets are approved. At that level, Hispanics made up only 3.6 percent of employees in fiscal 2007.

I would ask OPM to conduct a 10-year study on the number of Hispanic graduates from the Federal Executive Institute’s Leadership for a Democratic Society — the premier leadership development program in the federal sector. Similarly, OPM should review over 10 years the number of Hispanics that agencies recommended for and awarded Presidential Rank Awards for Distinguished and Meritorious Service — the most prestigious and lucrative awards in the federal service. The data will show that Hispanics and other minorities were underrepresented in all these areas.

The separation rate of Hispanics is high, thus negating the gains made in their recruitment. According to the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, the number of new Hispanic hires in the federal workforce from 2001 to 2005 was 47,381, while the cumulative number of separations was 20,410. Agencies would be wise to measure the cause of this exodus through surveys and exit interviews, and act on the findings. In addition, a viable mentoring program would go a long way toward creating a welcoming working environment for Hispanics.

Without accountability, there can be no progress. Agencies should add a measurable EEO/diversity goal to the performance plans of managers and supervisors. EEOC and OPM should cooperate to develop a measure that could be used by most agencies.

No one is advocating the hiring of unqualified employees or ignoring the merit principles. There are sufficient Hispanics with bachelor’s and advanced degrees, as well as with U.S. citizenship, to fill almost every job in the 1.9 million-person federal workforce. Now, it’s time to discard past excuses.

Jorge E. Ponce is co-chairman of the Council of Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives.

http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3937025

Also approximately over 40 news reports were authored by Bill Conroy regarding the U.S. Customs Service and discrimination with the San Antonio Business Journal.

http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/search/results.html?Ntt=u.s.+customs+service+and+discrimination&Ntx=mode_matchallpartial&Ntk=All&type=articles&x=27&y=19

Dear Narco News reader, you might be interested in learning what happened behind the blue wall of silence. I will be honest with you, one of the reason I got interested in law enforcement, and especially working public corruption cases is after I read two or three times the book Serpico written by Peter Maas with the help and assistance of Frank Serpico.

A few years ago a retired special agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement related that while he was assigned to work for Kevin JETER, and Michael J. STROM, and Kevin EVANS, that a surveillance team needed the night vision goggles but the only set available had been taken by one of the group supervisors for his OWN PERSONAL USAGE while deer hunting. Allegedly, an agent complained to the agency’s internal affairs but no investigation or action was taken against the supervisor who used the expensive equipment.

Fighting the war on drugs without the proper equipment

Monday, Feb. 23, 1987

A Shaky Operation Alliance

By Ed Magnuson; Jonathan Beaty - San Diego and Richard Woodbury - San Antonio

"We shall fight you on the land, on the sea and in the air, and we shall never surrender." With that Churchillian warning to smugglers, Deputy Commissioner Michael Lane of the U.S. Customs Service formally accepted two E- 2C Hawkeye radar planes from the U.S. Navy in San Diego. The ceremony was designed to showcase the high-tech weapons the Reagan Administration has committed to its war on illegal drugs. Making a similar pitch in Houston, Customs Commissioner William von Raab invited some 65 Texas lawmen to inspect a sophisticated new communications center for coordinating surveillance against smugglers. Alive with radar screens, computers and scrambled-speech telephones, the Blue Fire command post will eventually anchor a "radar picket line" along the porous 2,000-mile. border with Mexico, the passageway for one-third of the drugs entering the U.S.

The two ceremonies this month were part of the fanfare that has accompanied Operation Alliance, the sweeping antidrug effort launched last August with tough speeches by Vice President George Bush and Attorney General Edwin Meese. The multiagency border interdiction program would include the addition of hundreds of new personnel, the purchase of up to seven aircraft-spotting radar balloons, the use of four Hawkeye surveillance planes, the modification of four older P-3 Orion radar aircraft for border watching and the transfer of six Black Hawk helicopters to chase drug-running planes. State and local police were to receive grants from a separate $225 million fund authorized by Congress.

To many of the lawmen who work the border, the high expectations raised by Operation Alliance have been belied by the program's shaky start-up. Since the kickoff, there have been few significant increases in the number of federal agents deployed in the Southwest by the Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Agency and Border Patrol. The radar picket line is at least two years from completion, and other promised equipment has yet to be delivered. The Administration has even proposed eliminating promised federal funds for state and local police in next year's budget. "The Government isn't really serious about stopping drugs," charges a veteran Customs officer in southeast Texas. "Something is damn wrong." Declares Leo Samaniego, sheriff of El Paso County: "I have no concrete evidence that Operation Alliance even exists." Asks Carlos Tapia, chief deputy sheriff in Cameron County: "Where's the money? We haven't seen any. We feel like the bastard son abandoned."

Many federal agents, as well as state and local police, complain that they are fighting smugglers without the paraphernalia they need, including night-vision devices, secure radios and electronic sensors to plant in remote airfields and along footpaths used by smugglers. The Customs Service in McAllen, Texas, has only one rubber raft to patrol a 170-mile stretch of the Rio Grande. Declares Silvestre Reyes, chief Border Patrol agent for the McAllen sector: "The crooks are better equipped than we are."

Operation Alliance was also billed as the beginning of a new era of cooperation among the long-feuding agencies charged with interdicting drugs. But there are widespread complaints that this has not happened either. The rivalries remain so intense that the Administration has decided to rotate the chairmanship of Alliance among DEA, Customs and the Border Patrol. DEA, an arm of the Justice Department, clears all search warrants. The other agencies have accused DEA of moving slowly when its agents are not part of the action. Suspected drug caches, and the dealers, sometimes vanish before the papers are in hand to make a raid. "The DEA won't work with us," complains a Customs agent in Texas. "We can't even talk to them."

The Coast Guard has also demanded its share of the antidrug gear; it has managed to secure two of the four Hawkeyes for use on the East Coast, cutting the Southwest air surveillance. Amid all this tension, Peter Kendig, chief of the Customs Aviation Operations branch in San Diego, protests that "nobody knows who is in charge."

Commissioner Von Raab insists these complaints are premature. "We're pouring in millions," he declares, while predicting that the new gear and personnel will soon be visible. Von Raab says that "hundreds" of secure "voice-privacy" radios are being shipped to the Southwest and that 400 new Customs employees -- a 40% increase -- will be on the job within four months. Despite the cumbersome process of awarding contracts, he promised that radar planes and balloons will be in operation by next year.

Von Raab's rosy predictions may yet come true, but only if Congress insists on providing money for Operation Alliance that the Administration does not want to spend. The President was widely criticized when his budget for the coming fiscal year called for a $150 million slash in drug education and other cutbacks. Very quietly, the Administration has also asked Congress for permission to "postpone" the spending of $32 million designated for Customs to use this year. This would mean that Customs would have to restrict flights of the Hawkeye radar planes it has just received with such a splash from the Navy.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,963572,00.html