Agencies' merger spawns tension, arrests (US Customs & Border Protection and ICE)

[seafan]

Agencies' merger spawns tension, arrests

BY JAY WEAVER AND ALFONSO CHARDY
March 4, 2008

Bribery. Drug trafficking. Migrant smuggling.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes. But instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the ''disturbing events'' and the ``increase in the number of employee arrests.''
Thomas S. Winkowski, assistant commissioner of field operations, wrote a memo to more than 20,000 officers nationwide noting that employees must behave professionally at all times -- even when they are not on the job. ..... Winkowski's memo cites several employee arrests involving domestic violence, driving under the influence and drug possession. But court records show that CBP officers and other Department of Homeland Security employees from South Florida to the Mexican border states have been charged with dozens of far more serious offenses.

Among them: A Customs and Border Protection officer at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was charged in February with conspiring to assist a New York drug ring under investigation by tapping into sensitive federal databases.
Winkowski's warning signals an overwhelming preoccupation with public perception in the post-9/11 era. Two highly controversial issues, illegal immigration and national security, have thrust the Department of Homeland Security into the public eye as it labors to prevent another terrorist attack.
The bureaucratic behemoth grew out of a controversial consolidation five years ago this week of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Customs Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Employees of both agencies joined either of two new agencies: Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known for their acronyms CBP and ICE.
CBP handles the border, airports and seaports, while ICE investigates immigration and customs law violators.

.....

Administrative incidents are normally kept quiet by federal authorities. But officials cannot control publicity when misconduct escalates to serious criminal behavior, such as the February case involving the CBP officer at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Elizabeth Moran-Toala, a six-year veteran, allegedly accessed an electronic database known as TECS, or Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which serves as a tool to stop illegal drug imports.
According to an indictment, she is accused of tapping into the system several times to pass along information to a Delta Airlines baggage handler who was conspiring with a drug ring to transport cocaine and heroin on flights from the Dominican Republic to New York. Moran-Toala, 36, was transferred to New York in late February for prosecution.
Other recent South Florida cases -- mirroring a pattern on the border states -- have involved officers and agents accepting illegal payoffs for migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, witness tampering, embezzlement and rape.

CBP and ICE managers say these cases simply reflect individual criminal behavior, not the culture of the married agencies. ..... Some employees from the old INS are the most vocal in their complaints. They bitterly denounce employees who came from the old Customs Service for ''seizing control'' of both CBP and ICE, ''lording it over'' former INS employees and showing disdain toward immigration-related work.
Expected to improve efficiency, the merger has instead spawned tension. Both CBP and ICE scored near the bottom in a 2007 survey of employee satisfaction at 222 federal government agencies.
''It's become a cultural clash, tensions between officers from the merged agencies,'' said a Customs and Border Protection officer who asked not to be identified by name because he did not have authorization to speak publicly.

.....

The Department of Homeland Security is a bloated parasite of mismanagement, lack of accountability and chaotic operation that is an abysmal failure.

But, then, look at who created it.


DHS should be entirely dismantled in the next administration, with the replacement of stand-alone leadership within each agency.


Just one of many Bush disasters to be cleaned up.