By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Activists are offering to help ICE agents find new jobs if they quit working for the agency.

The immigration-rights group Never Again Action held a jobs program for ICE agents on Monday, and organizers said two ICE agents asked for help finding new employment.

“A lot of the protesters were chanting ‘quit your job,’” Baselt told The Daily Beast. “I saw an interaction between one protester and a relatively young DHS [Department of Homeland Security] agent who was standing outside the building […] The protester was asking him whether he was OK with what was happening at the border, if he was OK with kids in cages.”

The recruitment effort comes amid a period of low parole for immigration employees, some of whom reportedly committed suicide.

Border Patrol agent makes an arrest. Photo via Border Patrol.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Nearly 1 million migrants were apprehended along the southern U.S. border during the government’s fiscal year that ended Sept. 31, an 88% increase over 2018.

“These numbers are numbers that no immigration system in the world is designed to handle, including ours,” CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said at a media briefing at the White House on Tuesday.

The number of unauthorized crossings is higher than any year in the past 12 year, a “staggering” increase, Morgan said.

The highest number of migrants taken into custody in one year is 1.6 million in 2000.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Shouting and chanting protesters forced acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan off the stage before he could deliver a keynote address at Georgetown University’s Law Centeron Monday.

McAleenan was expected to give a 45-minute speech at the law school when he was immediately drowned out by chants of, “When immigrants are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” The USA Today reports.

A group of protesters also held a banner that read, “hate is not normal.”

The speech was part of an annual conference on immigration by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisan think tank, Georgetown University Law School and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC).

After trying to start his speech several times, he eventually gave up and said, “OK, thank you” and left the stage.

Activists said they didn’t want to give McAleenan a platform to “spread hatred.”

“No Trump henchmen should be given a platform to spread hatred or defend the racist, xenophobic policies put into place by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller,” said Nicole Regalado, the campaign director of CREDO Action. “Institutions that elevate the architects and enforcers of Trump’s hate and normalize that cruelty can expect to hear from us.”

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan has spoken out about his department’s increasingly controversial policies that is turning the department into a partisan tool for the president.

In a candid interview with The Washington Post, McAleenan said the family separations at the border were “well intended” but “went too far.”

“When you see the impact in the six-week period on 2,500-or-so families and understand the emotional pain for those children, it’s not worth it,” McAleenan, who is six months into his role, told The Washington Post. “It’s the one part of this whole thing that I couldn’t ever be part of again.”

McAleenan said he’s losing control of the rhetoric coming from a department that is supposed to be a neutral law enforcement agency.

“What I don’t have control over is the tone, the message, the public face and approach of the department in an increasingly polarized time,” he said. “That’s uncomfortable, as the accountable, senior figure.”

Trump has yet to nominate McAleenan to the full-time DHS secretary position.

White House officials would not discuss why he hasn’t been nominated, nor would they respond to his frustrations.

“Secretary McAleenan is doing a fantastic job implementing the president’s plan to secure the southern border, build the wall, halt illegal immigration and stop the dangerous practice of catch-and-release,” deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said. “Thanks to the changes President Trump’s administration has put in place, now, if you try to violate our borders, you will be turned around and sent back to where you came from.”

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

ICE agents are no longer allowed to use the firing range and classroom space at its training center in Portland after police abruptly terminated a two-year contract.

The Portland Police Bureau alerted the agency in a Sept. 19 letter that the city was halting an agreement for ICE to use the training center in Northeast Portland, Oregon Live reports.

The contract, signed in 2018, wasn’t supposed to expire until August 2020.

“After an internal review, the Portland Police Bureau is no longer allowing use of its Training Division facility by a portion of the United States Department of Homeland Security because the use of the facility must be consistent with the City’s values and Federal, State, and local laws,” the Police Bureau said in a statement Wednesday.

The city of Portland passed a resolution that prevents the city from using resources to enforce federal immigration law.

“The use of PPB’s training facility by other law enforcement agencies should be consistent with City values,” Chief Danielle Outlaw said in the statement.

“A mistake was made due to miscommunication during the contract approval process. When the oversight was brought to our attention, we took immediate action,” she added.

Via CBP

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

The fate of migrant families seeking protection in the U.S. will now be determined by Border Patrol agents, instead of the highly trained asylum officers who are highly trained in refugee laws.

Border Patrol agents, who will screen families for “credible fear” in the new pilot program, are beginning to get trained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, lawyers and several employees at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Los Angeles Times.

The Trump administration has long advocated using law enforcement officers to interview asylum seekers to determine whether families have a “credible fear” persecution in their home countries. The idea is that Border Patrol agents are less likely to provide asylum to families.

“It’s creating significant strain for our clients — not just because they’re unprepared and untrained,” Shay Fluharty, an attorney with the Dilley Pro Bono Project, told The Times. “We understand that the intention is to significantly limit asylum officers who are conducting these interviews and have them be primarily conducted by Border Patrol.”

Border Patrol agent makes an arrest. Photo via Border Patrol.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Border Patrol saw a significant decline in apprehensions in August, a rare decrease for the month.

The number of undocumented migrants detained for trying to cross the U.S. border in August dropped 22% over July. The decline was even more significant in the San Diego sector, where apprehensions dropped 43% compared to July.

Last year, August apprehensions were higher than July’s.

“This is not due to a seasonal decline,” Chief Patrol Agent Douglas Harrison told reporters Thursday.

Harrison said the decline is likely due to more enforcement from partners, including the newly created Mexico National Guard.

“This is a welcome relief and an indication that our efforts and those of our partners are having significant positive effects,” Harrison said.

Photo via Border Patrol

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The Department of Homeland Security plans to transfer $271 million from some of its agencies to support the Trump administration’s border enforcement efforts.

ICE will use the money to increase the number of beds for detained immigrants and to finance temporary facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reports.

At least $155 million of that money comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund as the hurricane season approaches.

The Trump administration announced last week that it plans to hold migrant families indefinitely.

DHS notified Congress of its plans in July.

Congressional Democrats criticized the transfer of funds.

“The Trump administration’s plan to divert money away from FEMA at the start of hurricane season to continue its efforts to separate and jail migrant families is backwards and cruel,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “Taking these critical funds from disaster preparedness and recovery efforts threatens lives and weakens the government’s ability to help Americans in the wake of natural disasters. Congress appropriated these funds to meet the American peoples’ priorities and I strongly oppose this effort to undermine our constitutional authority.”