LAWSUIT:
OBAMA OFFICIALS PRESSURED PROSECUTORS TO RELEASE CONVICTED CRIMINAL ILLEGAL
ALIENS
by Jonathan Strong, www.breitbart.com
An
award-winning, career prosecutor at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) alleged in a blistering new lawsuit she was punished for resisting orders
to release convicted criminal illegal aliens from custody.
The
allegations from Patricia M. Vroom, 59, implicate Peter Vincent, the
recently-resigned top lawyer at the agency.
Vroom said
in an Nov. 6 filing with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Arizona
District she was ordered to drop prosecutions of illegal aliens with prior DUI
convictions because, in the alleged words of senior ICE official Jim Stolley,
“We don’t give a shit about that. Let it go.”
She also
details pressure from supervisors to drop prosecutions of illegal aliens with
identify theft convictions, including one who registered to vote “not once, but
twice, both times falsely claiming to be a U.S.
Gillian
Christensen, a spokeswoman for ICE, said the agency does not respond to pending
litigation. Department of Homeland Sec. Jeh Johnson is named in the suit. DHS
houses ICE.
Vincent,
according to the filing, led a ruthless campaign to purge long-serving
officials across the agency to replace with friends and allies.
After
President Obama issued the executive “DREAM Act” order in 2012, providing legal
status to individuals brought to the U.S. illegally as children, senior
officials including Vincent coordinated to prevent the deportation of a DACA
recipient convicted of ID theft in Arizona.
Following
conflict over that decision and others, Vroom was given poor performance
remarks in an annual review at odds with previous reviews, hostile and
demeaning emails from superiors, and sexist attitudes.
In
February 2013, the filing said, Vroom was instructed by supervisors to release
aliens convicted of ID theft felonies in Arizona
Sarah
Hartnett, another senior ICE official “explained that as these were 'low-level'
offenders...since the typical alien defendant convicted under these provisions
of Arizona criminal law had simply been using a fake I.D. to get and keep
employment.
Vroom was
instructed to drop the cases and later mocked for considering the decision a
serious legal precedent, the filing said.
Regarding
the alien found to have registered to vote twice illegally, Vroom recounts how
she was pressured to drop removal proceedings.
According
to the filing, ICE official Matt Downer asked Vroom how she planned to handle
the situation. Vroom said she would agree to cancel the alien's deportation,
but Downer wrote back, “think again.”
“Realizing
she had not arrived at the “correct” answer as to how she should apply
'prosecutorial discretion,' Plaintiff then suggested the case be dismissed
without prejudice, to which Mr. Downer replied, 'Agreed,'”
However, a
short time later, Downer wrote back to urge an even more lenient course of
action.
“Re
reading this – dismiss with prejudice,” Downer wrote, according to the filing.
Dismissing
the case with prejudice would leave the government unable to prosecute the
individual for the crime in the future if he was subsequently detained for
another reason.
“This
instruction was legally unjustifiable and arguably unethical. No reasonable
government attorney would unnecessarily prejudice his or her prosecuting
client’s interests by requesting that a court dismiss a matter with prejudice
when it could be, and normally would be, dismissed without prejudice,” the
filing said.
Vroom also
detailed alleged ageism and sexism in the complaint and said Vincent made
unwanted advances on female employees, making them feel uncomfortable. In one
case, Vroom counseled a young woman to tell the then-married Vincent in an
e-mail, “Please leave me alone, Peter. You are old enough to be my father,”
which seemed to resolve the situation.
Ben Ferro
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