ICE and DOJ Sign Agreements to Share Information on Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime

/PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009, to foster increased communication between participating agencies at the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Fusion Center and the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2).

"The OCDETF Fusion Center and IOC-2 are founded on the principle that we can accomplish more together than we can separately," said Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden. "By bringing together the agencies and personnel with existing resources and expertise we can work more effectively as partners to shut down organized crime networks, seize assets and save taxpayer dollars in the process. This agreement, coupled with recent agreements between ICE, DEA and ATF will allow new levels of cooperation and intelligence sharing."

"These additional agreements we've signed with our Department of Justice law enforcement partners help us all better combat the worst criminal offenders," said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton. "By combining our resources, we expect to stop more drug smugglers and organized crime across the country."

By becoming an active participant in the OCDETF Fusion Center as outlined in one MOU, ICE will be adding more than 25 million records, including reports of investigation, wiretap intercept information and financial investigative material, from its drug-related investigations and drug-related financial investigations to the Fusion Center. ICE will also gain access to the additional agency information available through the Fusion Center. This increased partnership will further help in the joint fight against drug trafficking organizations by all of the other Fusion Center agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The ability of all participating Fusion Center agencies to develop target profiles and actionable investigative leads to disrupt and dismantle significant drug traffickers is enhanced by the increase of information collected at the Fusion Center. In addition to sharing in one collection of information, coordinating with the Fusion Center allows participating law enforcement agencies to "de-conflict" their investigations. De-confliction ensures that two or more agencies are not duplicating resources or that one agency's investigation will not have a negative impact on another agency's investigation.

DOJ and ICE also signed an MOU regarding ICE participation in the newly-created IOC-2, which marshals the resources and information of nine U.S. law enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors, to collectively combat the threats posed by international criminal organizations to domestic safety and security. It allows partner agencies to join together in a task force setting, combine data and produce actionable leads for investigators and prosecutors working nationwide to combat international organized crime, and to coordinate the resulting multi-jurisdictional investigations and prosecutions. ICE's new membership in IOC-2 will allow all the partner agencies to draw on data that now ICE will provide, while allowing ICE to work investigations with other agencies that may be targeting the same syndicates.

These latest MOUs follow closely on the heels of two additional agreements DEA and ATF, respectively, signed recently with ICE. Together, these agreements show a significant level of partnership and cooperation within the federal law enforcement agencies to target major criminal organizations.

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Isakson, Chambliss Praise Senate’s Rejection of Amnesty Provision in Emergency War Supplemental Bill

U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., today praised the Senate’s refusal to include an amnesty provision in the emergency war supplemental bill. Language that would have granted legal status to over 1 million illegal agriculture workers and their families was stripped Tuesday night from the spending bill for troops.

Isakson and Chambliss earlier this week had urged the Democratic leader to remove the amnesty provision from the bill.

“There’s no greater domestic issue in this country than illegal immigration, and I am pleased the Senate rejected this attempt to grant amnesty on a bill designed to give our soldiers the resources they need in the War on Terror,” Isakson said. “The war supplemental was the wrong vehicle to deal with this issue and this was the absolutely wrong approach to handling illegal agricultural workers. Congress can make immigration reform a reality by first delivering common-sense solutions to secure our porous borders and stop the flow of illegal immigrants.”

“I’m pleased the Senate recognized that removing this bad provision was the right thing to do,” said Chambliss. “We need to ensure that funding for our troops is approved and delivered as quickly as possible without getting bogged down in an unrelated immigration debate.”

On May 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to the emergency war supplemental spending bill that would give a five-year visa to 1.35 million workers plus their spouses and dependent children to live and work in the United States. For almost all legal purposes, the amendment requires that the illegal aliens who qualify for the proposed visa be treated as lawful permanent residents.

Adding the amendment to the appropriations bill violated Senate rules because it legislates on an appropriations bill. Last night, Democrats invoked Senate Rule 16 on the floor, which requires that provisions in amendments to appropriations bills be relevant to the underlying legislation. Among the provisions dropped was the proposal to grant visas allowing illegal aliens to hold agricultural jobs for up to five years.

On May 20, Isakson and Chambliss, along with eight other Republican senators, sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging the removal of the language. The text of the letter to Senator Reid is below. The letter was also signed by Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., David Vitter, R-La., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Jim Bunning, R-Ky.

May 20, 2008

The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Majority Leader Reid:

We write to express disappointment that the Senate Appropriations Committee chose to include in the War Supplemental more than 100 pages of immigration language that would grant legal status to more than one million illegal alien agriculture workers and their families. We urge you to remove these controversial provisions from the bill so we can enact essential funding for our troops without delay. If these provisions remain in the bill, you can expect a vigorous debate on immigration policy.