Immigration Law

ICE TAKES GUTIERREZ TO TASK FOR "GESTAPO" REMARK

By Greg Siskind

DHS' Immigration and Customs Enforcement head has entered the fray against Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez over characterization of recent enforcement actions as being conducted by the "Gestapo agents at Homeland Security."

Congressional Quarterly reports ICE chief Julie Myers was "appalled and deeply angered" by the statement.

No word yet from Congressman Gutierrez.

Two thoughts.

First, there are way too many gratuitous comparisons these days to the Nazis. Remarks like these have the effect of trivializing the Holocaust. If I were Congressman Gutierrez, I'd apologize for making the comparison, but continue to keep up the legitimate criticism of the sometimes extremely questionable excesses of the nation's immigration enforcement agency.

On the other hand, it's not exactly all kumbaya at ICE and its hard to stomach the hurt feelings protests we're hearing from the agency's leader. When I have to blog like I did this morning that the detainees dying of cancer are being called fakers and denied medical treatment, that Americans are being deported, that little kids are being separated from parents deported without being able to claim their children, etc. etc., there clearly is a problem. We would not be having congressional hearings on these things if all was going well.

Finally, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I don't recall hearing any censuring by DHS of Stewart Baker when last month he compared the nation's hundreds of thousands of human resource professionals to criminals for opposing E-Verify.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on August 15, 2008 (boomark / email).