Agency overview | |
---|---|
Formed | February 25, 2017 |
Dissolved | June 11, 2021 |
Parent department | Department of Homeland Security |
Parent agency | Immigration and Customs Enforcement |
Key document | |
Website | www |
The Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office was a U.S. government agency established within the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration in February 2017. [1] [2] President Donald Trump directed it be established by Executive Order 13768. [3] The office was dissolved by the Biden administration on June 11, 2021, replaced by the Victims Engagement and Services Line (VESL). [4]
The office's mission was to "provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens". [5] The office's purpose was to act as a liaison between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the victims and their families to ensure they would be provided information about the offender, including the offender's immigration and custody status so that their questions and concerns regarding immigration enforcement efforts would be addressed. [2]
The VOICE office was to issue quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States. [2] [6] Only one report, in June 2018, was issued through the agency's existence. [7]
The office was established pursuant to section 13 of the January 25, 2017, Executive Order 13768 – Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which states:
Sec. 13. Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens. The Secretary shall direct the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take all appropriate and lawful action to establish within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an office to provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and the family members of such victims. This office shall provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States. [8]
The stated purpose of the office is to provide information about offenders to victims, and address questions and concerns of victims regarding immigration enforcement efforts. [2] [9] In a speech on February 28, 2017, President Trump discussed the new office and referred to the murders of Jamiel Shaw, Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis as victims of immigrant crime. [10] He asserted that victims of immigrant crime have been "ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests". [9]
Maria Espinoza, director of the Remembrance Project, an anti-illegal immigration organization, said that such an office was needed "because the perpetrators are illegally in the U.S. If they are here illegally they should be removed from the country". [11] Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies said "highlighting some victims of criminal aliens doesn't suggest that all immigrants are criminals. Shame on those advocacy groups that are trying to minimize the experience of these families." [9]
Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation said, "that every crime that is committed by someone who is here illegally is a crime that would not occur if they weren't in the country." [12] John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said that "the office would serve several good purposes that are directly related to immigration policy, politics, and civic morality." [13]
Critics said that the office overlapped and duplicated the mission of the existing Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) within the Department of Justice (DOJ), which was established in the 1980s and serves the victims of all types of crime. [11] The executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime said of the plan: "It's complete and utter duplication and there's no need. I'm not sure what this office would do or what services it would offer different than what is available at DOJ." [11] Criminologist James Alan Fox, the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University, criticized the creation of VOICE, saying that it duplicated the mission of OVC. [14]
An editorial in the Baltimore Sun said that Trump's claim of victims being ignored and silenced was false, noting that crimes by immigrants generally received disproportionate attention in the media. It referred to Trump's statement as "race-baiting". [15]
Tessa Stuart of Rolling Stone said, "The memo doesn't mention it, but presumably the [VOICE] office would distribute the weekly list of criminal actions committed by undocumented immigrants that Trump promised in a recent executive order." [16]
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and writer Peter Beinart have said that Trump's establishment of the office is a form of scapegoating. [17] [18] Daniel Benjamin, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism official now at Dartmouth College, wrote that the office was not intended to meet a real need, but rather was aimed at promoting the view that immigrants are dangerous. [19]
The Washington Post fact-checked Trump's claims regarding immigration and crime and found that "the vast majority of illegal immigrants do not fit Trump's description of aggravated felons", citing studies by the Congressional Research Service. [20] [21] [22] [lower-alpha 1] Kevin Drum noted that even the anti-illegal immigration Center for Immigration Studies said that there was "no clear evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher or lower rates than others." [23] [lower-alpha 2] Anti-immigration organizations dispute the relevance of this, as they consider immigrant crime per se a sign of ineffective vetting and enforcement policies. [9] [12]
Amanda Erickson wrote in The Washington Post that publishing regular reports on the illicit behavior of undocumented immigrants – as well as singling out a particular group – "was employed to great effect by Adolf Hitler and his allies. In the 1930s, the Nazis used a similar tactic to stir up anger and hatred toward Jews". [25] Historian Richard Weikart, who has written about the Third Reich said that drawing a direct parallel between Trump and Hitler was "misguided", adding that "this issue doesn't really rise to that level". [25] Erickson said that "a regular government report is a far cry from the Nazis' aggressive, constant drumbeat against the Jews", but added that "The point is not that VOICE equals the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. But when leaders use the levers of government to drum up fear of one group of people, we should all be worried." [25]
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986.
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The actual size and the origin of the illegal alien population in the United States is uncertain and is difficult to ascertain because of difficulty in accurately counting individuals in this population. Figures from national surveys, administrative data and other sources of information vary widely. By all measures, the population of illegal aliens in the USA has declined substantially since 2007. The number of border apprehensions has substantially declined since 2000, the peak year, but more than doubled in the most recent fiscal year to approach 2007 levels.
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The United States government holds tens of thousands of immigrants in detention under the control of Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immigrants are detained for unlawful entry to the United States, when their claims for asylum are received, and in the process of deportation and removal from the country. During Fiscal Year 2018, 396,448 people were booked into ICE custody: 242,778 of whom were detained by CBP and 153,670 by ICE's own enforcement operations. A daily average of 42,188 immigrants were held by ICE in that year. In addition, over twelve thousand immigrant children are housed by facilities under the supervision of the Office of Refugee Resettlement's program for Unaccompanied Alien Children. Prior to referral to these other agencies, the CBP holds immigrants at processing centers; between mid-May and mid-June 2019, it held between 14,000 and 18,000 immigrants.
Secure Communities is a data-sharing program that relies on coordination between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The program was designed to "check the immigration status of every single person arrested by local police anywhere in the country". As part of the program, fingerprints that are taken upon arrest, which are traditionally forwarded to the FBI, are then also forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If these finger prints match the DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), then the ICE district office decides whether or not to issue a detainer request which can include requesting that the person be detained for up to 48 hours (I-247D), or a request for ICE to be notified upon their release (I-247N).
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Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for an employment authorization document in the U.S. To be eligible for the program, recipients cannot have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their records. Unlike the proposed DREAM Act, DACA does not provide a path to citizenship for recipients. The policy, an executive branch memorandum, was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. This followed a campaign by immigrants, advocates and supporters which employed a range of tactics. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications for the program on August 15, 2012.
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Executive Order 13768 titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 25, 2017. The order stated that "sanctuary jurisdictions" including sanctuary cities that refused to comply with immigration enforcement measures would not be "eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes" by the U.S. Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Security.
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