Tension over Obama policies within Immigration and Customs Enforcement

As it poises for further immigration initiatives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling with festering internal divisions between political appointees and career officials over how to enforce laws and handle detainees facing deportation.

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security has shifted its focus away from the worksite raids and sweeps employed during George W. Bush's presidency to deporting more criminals and creating less prisonlike detention settings. But ICE, a branch of DHS, is facing intensified resistance from agency middle managers and attorneys, and the union that represents immigration officers.

The internal conflict has grown increasingly public over ICE's plans, among them to expand a risk assessment tool to guide agents on detention decisions, cut down on transfers of detained immigrants, and open more "civil" detention facilities -- what field directors call "soft" detention...

[Full Article]

Immigrant Who Voted Illegally on Road to Becoming a U.S. Citizen

Can an immigrant who resides legally in the U.S. on a work visa but who voted illegally in a presidential election year still become a naturalized U.S. citizen?

Yes, actually. Especially if the Department of Homeland Security sends a letter instructing him to request removal from the voter rolls.

That happened this summer in Putnam County, Tenn., where County Administrator of Elections Debbie Steidl says an immigrant who illegally registered to vote – and then voted – in 2004 is now seeking to become a U.S. citizen.

Steidl says the man gave her a form letter from the DHS instructing him to:

"Submit … evidence that you have been removed from the roll of registered voters. This can be accomplished by contacting your local election commission where you registered and voted. Submit a letter of explanation of why you registered to vote, and where you registered to vote, when you discovered that you were not a United States Citizen."

Steidl provided FoxNews.com with a copy of the letter, with the man's name and address redacted. Click here to see the letter.

She told FoxNews.com that, were the immigrant to be removed from the voter roll, as the DHS suggested, all traces of his illegal voting record would normally be shredded within two years.

"I went to my election commission and I said: ‘this frightens me for my country,'" she said. "They agreed with me. Why would you let someone who committed voter fraud become a citizen? That's what they're doing."...

[Full Article]

EXCLUSIVE: DHS Caught and Released 481 ‘Fugitive’ Illegals from State Sponsors of Terror and ‘Countries of Interest’

(CNSNews.com EXCLUSIVE) - In the three fiscal years from 2007-2009, the Department of Homeland Security caught and released 481 illegal aliens from nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism and “countries of interest,” and those 481 aliens are now fugitives, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database obtained by CNSNews.com as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

The four state sponsors of terrorism, as determined by the State Department, are Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. The “countries of interest” are those additional countries whose citizens have been subjected to enhanced screening on U.S.-bound flights by the Transportation Security Administration as a result of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253...

[Full Article]

GAO: Multiple Failures Sunk Border Security System

Poor management and performance led the Department Of Homeland Security to halt funding of SBInet, Government Accounting Office says.

A botched testing process, performance issues, and poor management derailed a Department of Homeland Security project to install a sophisticated security system on the fence at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday.

The DHS earlier this week cut off funding for the project, called SBInet, pending further review. The report outlines events that led to the DHS' decision...