ICE Criminal Investigators Say They Want Out Of The 'Politicized' Agency

KUT 90.5 | By Jill Ament | Texas Standard

Published June 29, 2018 at 12:00 PM CDT

From .

In a backlash against the president鈥檚 immigration policies, agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are now some Democratic Socialists and other progressives that ICE should be dissolved. The Texas Observer this story, by The New York Times.

is a San Antonio-based journalist who reports for the Texas Observer and other publications. He broke this story. He says more than a dozen ICE Special Agents In-Charge have written to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The agents work for the division of ICE that investigates national security threats, and conducts criminal investigations.

鈥淭hey, for awhile, have been uncomfortable with their pairing with the deportation and detention side of ICE,鈥� Buch says 鈥渁nd now they鈥檝e asked the homeland security secretary to spin them off into their own separate agency within the department.鈥�

Buch says discomfort with the Trump administration鈥檚 immigration policy has grown inside the criminal division of ICE, and that has divided it from other elements of the agency. While the union representing agents in the detention division endorsed Trump before the 2016 election, members of the criminal investigation team are not allowed to join the union.

鈥淎ll of this has made Homeland Security Investigations feel like their mission is being politicized, and being harmed,鈥� Buch says.

Written by Shelly Brisbin.