Justice Department: No criminal charges for Lerner, others in IRS scandal

The Justice Department announced Friday afternoon that it will not bring criminal charges against Lois Lerner or any other IRS official involved in the targeting of Tea Party groups, in a decision Republicans ripped as a "free pass." 
In a letter to leaders of the House Judiciary Committee, the department said the investigation into the controversy will be closed -- and while they found "mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia," they found "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."
"What occurred is disquieting and may necessitate corrective action -- but it does not warrant criminal prosecution," Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik wrote.
Republicans, who themselves have investigated the IRS scandal for years, fumed over Friday's DOJ decision.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the move marks a "low point of accountability" for the Obama administration.
"Giving Lois Lerner a free pass only reinforces the idea that government officials are above the law and that there is no consequence for wrongdoing," Issa said in a statement.
Some Republicans had called for a special counsel to be assigned to the case, complaining that the investigation was led by a Democratic donor. Among them, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., on Friday warned that "politicization continues to go unchecked by this Administration and a Justice Department charged with pursuing wrongdoing."
Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots and leader of Citizens for Self Governance which is suing the IRS, called the DOJ letter a "whitewash and miscarriage of justice."
But Democrats held up the findings as evidence that Republicans were on a witch hunt, with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ripping GOP colleagues for spending money on "all kinds of investigative rabbit holes."
The IRS firestorm erupted more than two years ago with an inspector general's audit that said IRS agents had improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The disclosure set off investigations by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees, which focused in large part on former official Lerner's role.
The House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress last year after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight hearings. She has since retired.
The investigations into Lerner featured many unusual twists and turns, including a controversy over an apparent hard drive crash that sent investigators scrambling to recover messages and the release of emails that showed Lerner making disparaging comments about Republicans.
The DOJ letter sent Friday said Lerner used "poor judgment" in using her IRS email account to send personal messages voicing "political views," but said they found no evidence that she exercised her official authority at the IRS in a "partisan manner generally" or that political views influenced her actions with regard to the tax-exempt applications.
The letter further said they found "no evidence" that any IRS official acted based on political or other motives that would support criminal prosecution.
Rather, the DOJ said they found a "disconnect" between employees at the Cincinnati office, where IRS workers vetted the applications, and those in Washington, D.C. The letter said "no one person" was responsible, pinning the blame for the "ill-advised" and "burdensome" process instead on "discrete mistakes by line-level revenue agents" and others -- whose mistakes, according to the DOJ, were "exacerbated" by leadership lapses in D.C.

Missing Money? Report questions how states spent ObamaCare funds

The federal government awarded over $5 billion to help states set up ObamaCare exchanges, with the vast majority – $4.6 billion – going to 16 states and Washington, D.C. 
But, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, much of that money has not been accounted for – and yet not returned, either.
So where did those taxpayer dollars go?
That’s the billion-dollar question.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) required the establishment of health insurance exchanges – known as marketplaces – to help small employers and consumers compare and purchase insurance plans. States opted to either develop their own state-based exchanges or hand authority to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). And between 2010 and 2014, CMS awarded federal grants mostly to states setting up their own marketplaces, to help them get started.
About $4.6 billion was given to these 17 recipients, including California, New York, Washington state and Kentucky.
But the GAO report found that so far, just $1.4 billion of that has been spent on IT projects, and a total of $3 billion has been “spent or drawn down,” though not all the spending is detailed.
That, then, leaves at least $1.6 billion unaccounted for. Yet only three states returned any portion of the money – a total of just over $1 million was given back.
“[T]he specific amount spent on marketplace-related projects was uncertain, as only a selected number of states reported to GAO that they tracked or estimated this information,” the report said.
Even though states were supposed to set up their marketplaces by the end of last year, they are not yet legally required to return unused funds.
Chuck Young, with the GAO, explained that the grants also could have covered non-IT costs not addressed in the study, and the funding devoted to IT projects will generally remain available for states’ use until December – albeit with restrictions. “CMS said that, since March 2015, states may have spent additional grant funds for IT projects, re-purposed those funds for non-IT costs, or returned funds,” he said, adding that the office expects to conduct a follow-up to this report.
But in an article on the GAO report by the American Spectator, health care adviser and contributor to the publication David Catron highlighted the monetary discrepancy and raised the question of whether Democratic officials improperly diverted or spent more than $3 billion in taxpayer grant money.
“It’s hard to know with any degree of certainty where the money went,” he told FoxNews.com. “So all we know with any confidence is how much was awarded, how much went to IT and what the difference is.”
Catron pointed out that 85 percent of federal funds went to Democrat-controlled states, and that only three states returned any money to CMS while the remaining 13 states and D.C. have yet to return any funds.
The spending is different from state to state. Oregon has withdrawn just over $293 million of its $305 million and spent almost all of the $78.5 million authorized for its IT expenses – but based on the report, has not returned any leftover funds. California was given over $1 billion and spent $709 million. GAO found that less than a half-million dollars has been returned to the federal government.
Representatives for the Department of Health in Oregon told FoxNews.com that the IT funds listed on the report were only one part of setting up the exchange, implying that remaining funding was directed elsewhere. A spokesperson for the ObamaCare marketplace Covered California said that when they released the 2015-2016 budget in June, there was approximately $100 million in federal funds left and carried it over thanks to an extension by the federal government; they now have until the end of December to draw on the funds for the program.
A representative for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services insisted that if any funds are misallocated the CMS “will work to recover the funds using remedies available under law and regulation.”
“To safeguard taxpayer funds, HHS has also put in place additional program integrity regulations and has implemented, or is in the process of implementing, the GAO’s recommendations,” said HHS senior adviser Meaghan Smith.
In examining how states have used federal funds for IT projects and CMS’s role in overseeing them, the non-partisan GAO found that marketplaces reported spending nearly 89 percent of the funds on “IT contracts,” but that the CMS is still trying to track states’ IT spending in more detail.
The GAO urged CMS to improve its existing oversight roles and responsibilities and ensure that senior executives adequately review and approve funding decisions.
And despite all the money issued to states specifically for IT use, the GAO underscored an array of problems – from poor system performance to software and hardware problems – plaguing the state-based and federally run marketplaces.
According to Dennis Santiago, risk analyst and director of the Bank Monitor Division for Total Bank Solutions, the uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean the money was misused.
“What is missing is the proof that diversions did or did not occur, and if so where,” he said. “IT costs are only part of the process. It could be legitimate, classic pocket lining at work – or some of both.”

'Serial liar': Families of Benghazi victims blast Clinton on Benghazi

Michael Ingmire watched as Hillary Clinton was grilled for 11 hours Thursday about the 2012 attack in Benghazi that left his nephew and three other Americans dead and saw not a future president, but a "serial liar."
As a congressional panel pressed the former Secretary of State over the attack on the consulate facility in the Libyan city, Ingmire, uncle of Sean Smith, and relatives of former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty watched from their homes, hoping Clinton's testimony would yield answers about why additional security was not granted and why she initially blamed the attack on a YouTube video instead of a coordinated act of terrorism.
"The thing that was shocking – one of the pinnacle moments – was the revelation she told her family there was a terrorist attack while she told America something else," Smith's uncle, Michael Ingmire, told FoxNews.com. "Mrs. Clinton is a serial liar."

"Mrs. Clinton is a serial liar."
- Michael Ingmire, uncle of Sean Smith

Smith, an information officer, and Woods, a former Navy SEAL, died along with Doherty and U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens when Islamic militants stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and set it ablaze before attacking a nearby CIA compound with machine guns and rockets.
Stevens, the first U.S. Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979, had repeatedly asked the State Department for increased security at the consulate prior to the attack but his requests were not granted.
In the hours following the attacks, the Obama administration learned they were carefully planned assaults by Al Qaeda-related militants but Clinton and others would go on to tell a different tale: an anti-Muslim YouTube video caused spontaneous protests and angry mobs were to blame for the attacks.
"So if there's no evidence for a video-inspired protest, then where did the false narrative start?" Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan asked Clinton during the hearing Thursday.
"It started with you, Madam Secretary," he said. "You could live with a protest about a video, that won't hurt you, but a terror attack would."
Clinton rejected Jordan's claim, describing the situation in the hours after the attack as "fluid" and the details unclear.
"I am sorry that it doesn't fit your narrative congressman, I can only tell you what the facts are," Clinton said.
During the marathon hours of questioning -- which Democrats claim was a partisan attack on the Democratic presidential frontrunner -- Clinton said Stevens understood the risks involved and that his requests for additional security never crossed her desk.
"Those requests for security were rightly reviewed by the security professionals," Clinton told the committee. "I did not see them. I did not approve them. I did not deny them."
Clinton also described Stevens as a friend, saying the 52-year-old ambassador "understood that most people in Libya or anywhere reject the extremists' argument that violence can ever be a path to dignity or justice."
"I knew and admired Chris Stevens," she said in her opening remarks Thursday. "He was one of our nation's most accomplished diplomats. Chris' mother liked to say he had 'sand in his shoes,' because he was always moving, always working, especially in the Middle East that he came to know so well."
But Clinton's closeness to Stevens was called into question by Rep Susan Brooks, R-Ill., who asked: "Did you ever personally speak to him after you swore him in in May? Yes or no please."
"Yes, I believe I did," Clinton replied. "I don't recall."
Ingmire described Clinton's choice of words about Stevens as jarring.
"How could she say 'Chris thought this' and 'Chris felt that' when she basically had nothing to do with him?" Ingmire said.
Tyrone Woods' father, Charles, recalled meeting Clinton when his son's body arrived at Andrews Air Force Base two days after the attacks.
"I gave Hillary a hug and shook her hand and she said, 'We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son," Woods said, reading the account from his journal.
"That was a complete bald-faced lie," he told FoxNews.com Friday. "The day after the attack, she was talking to the Prime Minister of Egypt and she said the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the video."
Smith's mother, Patricia, gave a similar account, saying she was told by the administration "it was a video when they knew it was not a video."
"They told me lies," she said Friday. "My son told me the night before that he has been asking for security and he hasn’t heard anything."

Racist Cartoon

Obama vetoes $612 billion defense policy bill in rebuke to GOP

WASHINGTON –  President Obama vetoed a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill Wednesday in a rebuke to congressional Republicans, and insisted they send him a better version that doesn't tie his hands on some of his top priorities.
In an unusual veto ceremony, Obama praised the bill for ensuring the military stays funded and making improvements on military retirement and cybersecurity. Yet he pointedly accused Republicans of resorting to "gimmicks" and prohibiting other changes needed to address modern security threats.
"Unfortunately, it falls woefully short," Obama said. "I'm going to be sending it back to Congress, and my message to them is very simple: Let's do this right."
The rare presidential veto marked the latest wrinkle in the ongoing fight between Obama and Republicans who control Congress over whether to increase federal spending — and how.
Four years after Congress passed and Obama signed into law strict, across-the-board spending limits, both parties are eager to bust through the caps for defense spending. But Obama has insisted that spending on domestic programs be raised at the same time, setting off a budget clash with Republicans that has yet to be resolved.
To side-step the budget caps, known in Washington as sequestration, lawmakers added an extra $38.3 billion to a separate account for wartime operations that is immune to the spending limits. The White House has dismissed that approach as a "gimmick" that fails to deal with the broader problem or provide long-term budget certainty for the Pentagon.
Obama also rejects the bill as written due to provisions making it harder for him to transfer suspected terror detainees out of the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a key campaign promise that Obama is hard-pressed to fulfill before his term ends. The White House has also expressed concerns over provisions preventing military base closures and funding equipment beyond what the military says it needs.
But Republicans lambasted Obama for prioritizing the domestic spending he seeks over the security of U.S. troops and the nation they protect.
"This is the worst possible time for an American president to veto their national defense bill, and especially to do so for arbitrary partisan reasons," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
The veto forces Congress to revise the bill or try to settle the larger budget dispute. Although Republicans have vowed to try to override Obama's veto, the White House insisted it was confident it had the votes to ensure Obama's veto stays in place.

Fruit fiasco: High school students face punishment for "racist" fruit basket

A Texas school district has its kumquats in a twist over a fruit basket they considered to be racially insensitive.
The Humble Independent School District’s fruit fiasco has resulted in investigations, punishments and national media coverage.
CLICK HERE TO JOIN TODD’S AMERICAN DISPATCH – A MUST-READ FOR CONSERVATIVES!
The hullabaloo started on Oct. 16 when the marching bands from Atascocita High School and Summer Creek High School exchanged gifts before a football game.

The youngsters from Atascocita gave their counterparts a Halloween basket that included canned pineapple, a whole coconut, a small watermelon and some candy. An adult sponsor for the band raised concerns and those concerns were forwarded to school administrators.

“It is a tradition for student representatives of competing schools to exchange gifts on the field at varsity football games,” public information officer Robin McAdams said in an email to me.
The youngsters from Atascocita gave their counterparts a Halloween basket that included canned pineapple, a whole coconut, a small watermelon and some candy. An adult sponsor for the band raised concerns and those concerns were forwarded to school administrators.
“School Administrators conducted an investigation and after considering the totality of circumstances, determined that the gift was inappropriate and lacked good sportsmanship,” McAdams told me. “Atascocita High School will not tolerate racial insensitivity.”
My goodness – who knew the Piggy Wiggly produce aisle was wrought with such racial animus?
Several of the students involved told Houston-area television stations they did nothing wrong.
“I’m mixed race,” senior Alyssa Taylor told ABC13. “I don’t take offense to that. How can someone else take offense?”
There are reports that some of the students involved may be kicked out of the band and others may face In School Suspension.
“It’s just not fair, not fair,” parent Hector Andaverde told the television station.
The school district said their investigation determined a few of the students “discussed that the watermelon could be perceived as racially offensive and should not be included in the gift.”
The watermelon? Really? That’s the racially offensive fruit? My money was on the coconut.
Assistant Superintendent Trey Kraemer wrote in a letter to parents that Summer Creek’s band members were “confused by the nature of the exchange.”
“Typically, these gifts contain snacks such as crackers, candy and popcorn that can be readily shared among students and eaten during the game,” he wrote.
Quite frankly, I take offense at the assistant superintendent’s use of the word ‘cracker.’ I prefer to be called a Saltine-American.
School administrators say they are working to implement procedures to prevent future offensive fruit exchanges.
I’m hoping the school district will announce a blue ribbon panel to once and for all determine which fruit is racially acceptable.
Off hand, I’d be suspicious of pomegranate, kiwi and those dancing raisins in the Motown song, “Heard it Through the Grapevine.
And why stop at the produce aisle?
It’s possible that some LGBT students might take offense at a box of Fruity Pebbles. Hispanic band kids could take offense at being served salsa. And what greater insult is there than to serve lactose intolerant kids a bowl of Blue Bell Ice Cream?
This is indeed an issue that must be addressed – lest we offend this perpetually offended generation and their fragile psyches.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

Clinton seeks to turn page on Benghazi after testimony – but can she?

Hillary Clinton, after a grueling day of testimony before the congressional Benghazi committee, made clear she hopes to at last move beyond the controversy that has dogged her presidential campaign.
The former secretary of state -- no doubt looking to avoid missteps that could reverberate on the trail -- was visibly measured Thursday as she spent 11 hours defending her role before, during and after the attacks. And she repeatedly cited past investigations, suggesting there’s little more to uncover.
Whether Clinton gets her wish remains to be seen.
Ultimately, analysts suggested the hearing might not move the dial much either way – Republican critics continued to voice frustration Thursday at her responses, while congressional Democrats spent the better part of the day defending her.
"In the short-term, this has probably not changed the minds of anyone watching the proceedings,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said.  
That may have been all Clinton could hope for.
She entered the committee room Thursday at the end of an important week for the campaign – a day earlier, Vice President Biden, who had been considering a 2016 bid and could have posed the biggest primary threat to her candidacy, announced he would not run. This came after she delivered what was widely regarded as a strong debate performance last week.
But even if her testimony doesn’t change many minds, the former secretary of state’s detractors likely will find plenty of fodder in her hearing responses.
Though Democrats complained the hearing turned up nothing new, Clinton did acknowledge Thursday that, even as she received frequent emails from friend Sidney Blumenthal, the late Ambassador Chris Stevens did not have her personal email address.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also said that as the administration was blaming an anti-Islam video for motivating the attackers, Clinton was telling the Egyptian prime minister they knew the attack was “planned” and had “nothing to do with the film.”
Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News analyst and former Army vice chief of staff, cited that exchange and said “that’s news that obviously she didn’t believe that the film was part of the motivation for the attack.”
The hearing, though, only muddied the public understanding of what Clinton believes to this day. While Clinton blamed the “fog of war” for confusion in Benghazi, on Thursday she also continued to assert that the video may have motivated some attackers.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, before the House Benghazi Committee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

More broadly, though, Clinton drew frustration from Republicans by repeatedly skirting blame for her department’s denial of security requests for Stevens and his team. Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.
Clinton testified to the Benghazi committee that the security requests were handled by security professionals in the department and not her.
"I did not see them. I did not approve them. I did not deny them," she said.
Clinton acknowledged some of his requests were approved, and others were not. But she said Stevens emailed regularly with her close aides and “did not raise security with the members of my staff.”
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee swiped at Clinton on Twitter as she rebuffed accusations before the committee.
“.@HillaryClinton coming clean to #BenghaziCommittee seeming abt as likely as me getting a Che Guevara tattoo on small of my back! #Benghazi,” he tweeted.
Clinton, though, tried to walk a fine line. Even as she denied responsibility for the rejected security requests, she said she’s assumed responsibility in a general sense and tried to make changes at the department before she left.
And she challenged the notion that she was out of touch with the situation on the ground.
“I’ve lost more sleep than all of you put together” over Benghazi, she said.
Notable is that while Clinton and her campaign used the run-up to Thursday’s hearing to accuse the panel of being a Republican partisan tool, Clinton mostly avoided a confrontational tone during her testimony.
Instead, she sat back as Democratic and Republican members battled – at times shouted at – each other over the credibility of the committee itself.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the committee's top Democrat, said the panel was only formed because Republicans "did not like the answers" from prior investigations. So, he said, they established the committee and "set them loose, Madam Secretary, because you're running for president." Cummings called it an "abusive effort to derail" her campaign.
But Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., denied this. Of allegations that the investigation is all about Clinton, Gowdy said Thursday, "Let me assure you it is not."
When asked by reporters at the end of the 11-hour hearing if Clinton's testimony helped reach a conclusion, Gowdy said the work of the congressional Benghazi committee is not yet over.
"I don't draw conclusions till the end, and there are more witnesses to talk to," he said.

‘Obvious flight risk’: Toddler's brutal beating prompts call to withhold bail from illegal immigrants

When Francisco Javier Chavez posted bail on charges of beating a California toddler within an inch of her life in late July, there was little reason to expect the illegal immigrant, who has spent much of his adult life hopping back and forth across the Mexican border, would return to face justice.
Two weeks later, at his scheduled arraignment on Aug. 13, Chavez was a no-show. The 27-year-old career criminal had put up $10,000, or 10 percent of the amount set for his alleged crimes by California's bail schedule. His disappearance is hardly a surprise to critics who believe violent illegal immigrants are, by definition, flight risks who should be denied bail in such serious cases. They say judges, especially in border states plagued by illegal immigrant crime, are naive or worse if they expect suspects who regularly cross in and out of Mexico to take the U.S. justice system seriously.
“Frankly, judges grant bail in cases like these because they are being foolish,” said Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer now at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “The judge can consider bail for you when you are charged with a crime, but does not have to let you out on bail. If the state can show you are a flight risk, you should not get bail. If the state can show you are a danger to the public because of a history of violence, you should not get bail.”

“Frankly, judges grant bail in cases like these because they are being foolish.”
- Hans A. von Spakovsky, Heritage Foundation’

While Chavez is in the wind, his alleged victim, the 2-year-old daughter of his live-in girlfriend, is now in foster care, paralyzed from the beating that also left her with both arms and a femur broken. Well before he was arrested in San Luis Obispo County for attacking the child, Chavez had compiled a lengthy criminal record that includes assault and drug convictions and arrests for violent acts such as kidnapping, car-jacking and cruelty to a child. He was deported in February 2014, but as in previous instances, found it easy to sneak back across the border and into the U.S.
Weeks after Chavez slipped out of custody, on Sept. 1, another 2-year-old toddler named Jonathan Montez was run down and killed in San Bernardino County. Illegal immigrant Jose Enrique Vasquez, 53, an unlicensed driver who witnesses said was speeding down the child’s residential street, fled the scene, according to authorities. He was arrested two weeks later, and, like Chavez, was granted bail.
Vasquez also has compiled a lengthy criminal record under various aliases, including charges of spousal abuse, battery of a peace officer, driving without a license, driving under the influence and armed robbery. But other charges in his criminal record might have given a judge pause in considering bail according to critics, including failure to appear in court, possession of false citizenship documents and eight deportations for illegally entering the country.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Jonathan Montez was just 2 when he was run down and killed in San Bernardino County. An illegal immigrant was charged in his death.

The systems for granting bail in state courts varies from state to state. California's bail system lays out prescribed amounts for various crimes as a guideline for law enforcement and judges, but judges retain discretion to raise the amount in cases where the suspect is a flight risk or a danger to the public and the district attorney can add, drop or change the charges. Two states, Alabama and Missouri, have passed laws that preclude bail for illegal immigrants suspected of serious crimes, while judges in other states -- notably Texas -- weigh illegal status in making their decisions. But last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arizona's 2006 law banning bail for illegal immigrant suspects violated their right to due process and amounted to punishment before trial. The 11-member panel's decision called the law a "scattered attempt" to deal with the problem of chronic bail-skipping by illegal immigrants. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the lower court's decision.
Judges everywhere maintain discretion to deny bail to anyone they believe is likely to flee justice, yet they often fail to consider illegal status as a factor, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. And critics say it should be obvious that someone here illegally and suspected of a violent crime will bolt rather than face justice, especially in border states such as California, where they can be out of the country an hour after posting bail.
“Aliens who commit acts of violence should not be released on bail, because they are clearly a danger to the public, and when we have someone with this kind of deportation history, clearly they are an obvious flight risk,” said von Spakovsky. “These judges are making mistakes granting bail to illegal aliens – reckless mistakes that endangered the public.”
The willingness of judges to grant bail to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes compounds the ongoing controversy involving so-called sanctuary cities. Such jurisdictions, either by local statute or practice, refuse to inform federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when an illegal immigrant is detained.
But even jurisdictions that do not implement sanctuary policies believe that two federal court rulings, the 2013 California “Trust Act,” which limits “cruel and costly immigration hold requests in local jails,” and an ambiguous White House policy all bar them from holding illegal immigrants who have posted bail until federal authorities can collect and deport them – even if ICE asks them to via what is known as a “detainer request.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued jurisdictions that attempted to honor the ICE detainers, and the Department of Justice has not intervened in the cases to underscore its support of them. As a result, local law enforcement agencies say they have no choice but to let even violent illegal immigrant suspects walk once they are granted bail.
“Yes, the judges who ignore this risk are at fault, but Congress provided ICE with a tool to address the problem -- detainers -- which the Obama administration is not allowing its officers to use,” Vaughan said.
In the cases of both Chavez and Vasquez, ICE issued detainer requests. In Chavez’s case, ICE agents did not arrive prior to bail being posted. In the case of Vasquez, ICE isn’t immediately taking custody or deporting Vasquez, so that he remains in the U.S. at least resolving the legal proceedings surrounding the hit-and-run charge.
Don Rosenberg, who, after his 25-year-old son Drew was killed by an unlicensed immigrant driver in San Francisco five years ago, began closely tracking illegal immigrant crime, said the biggest problem he sees is “people in power don’t care.” He blames judges for granting bail, but also holds law enforcement accountable for caving in to the threat of lawsuits.
“How can anyone who in law enforcement let people like this out of custody who we know will likely hurt someone badly, if not kill them, even if they are threatened with a lawsuit?” Rosenberg said. “It’s pure callous indifference. I don’t know how they live with themselves.”