Are those the actual agents? I hope not unless the situation is so bad they don’t care if they get fired.
[IAM: YES, THESE ARE REAL AGENTS. THESE ARE REAL PHOTOS FROM ICE PRESS CONFERENCES AND THE ICE PR MACHINE, PUBLICIZING REAL BUSTS. DS]

i_am_me on July 15, 2009 at 3:56 pm

I rest my case…
i_am_me: The good agents won’t get fired for something like that. These turds in the pictures are the “company men”. ICE hierarchy will make something up to get the decent folks investigated by the Gestapo (OIG for you civilians) and subsequently screw them over.

ICEnomore on July 15, 2009 at 5:06 pm

Runaway train never coming back
Wrong way on a one way track….
Debbie isnt it ironic when Mexico does drug bust they put the goods and the ones apprehended on public display and this is what ICE does? Can you say Candy-ass?
http://thefreshscent.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cartel.jpg
Joe Arpaio did a perp walk of illegal alien inmates and the liberals were crying for civil rights violation.

californiascreaming on July 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm

[YES, THESE ARE REAL AGENTS. THESE ARE REAL PHOTOS FROM ICE PRESS CONFERENCES AND THE ICE PR MACHINE, PUBLICIZING REAL BUSTS]
When I asked if these were real agents, I actually thought the pictures were staged by ICE agents to make fun of ICE.
Wow.

i_am_me on July 15, 2009 at 6:57 pm

I will say this: Any law enforcement entity that has a Halloween costume party CANNOT be taken seriously. Consequently, ICE is doing everything they don’t need to be doing to avoid doing what they should be doing. (ya with me camera guy?) I remember when INS Special Agents were seasoned former BP agents, and they actually arrested aliens. Imagine that! Shit, they even called them aliens too.

#1Vato on July 15, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Yep, these are real agents. I know the one in the bottom, holding the fireworks. This also shows the proclivity of management to only have managers in these photo ops and not the street agents that worked the cases.

legcagent on July 15, 2009 at 11:40 pm

Obama “Stimulus” Cake
http://z.hubpages.com/u/527321_f520.jpg

yonason on July 16, 2009 at 4:25 am

I guess I have to go again the team on this one, but it was always part of the Customs mission to enforce the endangered species act for imported merchandise. I did one of these cases years ago myself. It was a guy who illegal killed a Jaguar in South America and smuggled it back into the US. While there are cases with higher priority these cases needed to be worked too. It’s just another reason why the immigration and Customs enforcement should be kept seperate.

longshanks on July 16, 2009 at 12:11 pm

I retired from ICE in October 2006 after 30 years of law enforcement. I joined the U.S. Customs Service in 1988. In 1981 I became a special agent with DoD and in 1983 I got hired by the old U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS). Through the years I communicated with Debbie when I was still working for ICE. I write my own stories in a different liberal media news internet. I would like to contribute with some recent experiences I had or read from newspapers, or sources just call me and tell me. I have one question: is JAMES C. SPERO, a top level official at ICE-HQ related to retired CBP top management official DEBORAH J. SPERO?

I am trying to generate some activity into the alleged suicide of the first Arizona ICE SAC Thomas Vincent DeRouchey, who left no notes and his family believes he did not kill himself. Then after the alleged suicide, KYLE “BULLY’BARNETTE moves to New Orleans, LA where he became a Deputy SAC, retired and got re-hired as an Intelligence Director. He was allowed to keep his pension plus his new salary.

Recently a US Border Patrol (USBP) agent was indicted by a Pima County Grand Jury for sexually molesting one or two kids. I called the Sahuarita Police Department (between Nogales and Tucson, AZ) and I asked if they would just give me the date when the USBP agent got indicted. The police operator checked with her Lt. and i was told that no information was being given regarding this case. Lupita Murillo from a Tucson TV network forgot to state when the indictment was issued. I contacted some sources at Tucson, AZ plus I reviewed the written news report by Ms. Murillo. The USBP agent was still working doing administrative duties in the Nogales USBP office, HAD NOT BEEN arrested yet.

Then I saw another newsreport where the dead bodies of two USBP agents from Texas had been found in Arizona, allegedly a murder-suicide.

Back to the case of Thomas V. DeRouchey. The Marana PD (who had some alleged corruption problem of its own) were given permission to investigate the alleged suicide. Later on and before the Marana police detectives completed the investigation, ICE told them that they were no longer allowed to enter the ICE building or to talk to the ICE employees. That the investigation was to be conducted by ICE’s Office of Professional responsibility. The same outfit that in 1998 when we still had the U.S. Customs, investigated the death of special agent Gary Paul Friedli who died thanks to his partner and driver Allan Sperling. A second investigation was conducted by the US Treasury’s OIG and found that both Customs’ internal affairs and the office of investigation lied and made false statements. Sperling received a letter of reprimand in order to impose a more harsh discipline since he had a mile long rap sheet of careless driving. The Customs commissioner Ray Kelly and Bill Keefer lied to Mrs. Friedli when they told her that because Sperling had been “disciplined” with a letter of reprimand that there was nothing they could do. Well, Kelly and Keefer formed a COLD UNIT SQUAD within HQ’ internal affairs. Their job: review any cases were employees received lenient discipline. When they found several employees (mostly employees who had complained against management) received more severe punishment…some of them got fired.

Now, let’s the show begin…..

Miguel Angel Contreras on August 2, 2009 at 6:57 pm

As to the pictures, as a US Customs Service I was given a letter of reprimand after my picture appeared in a local newspaper and in the community section. The purpose of the story was to deliver a message to our local youth tp stay out of trouble and go to college. Unknown to me, I was accused of “hampering an investigation where I was to be the undercover agent. Under Customs’ policy, it is up to the agent to do any undercover work. Plus, weeks before I had been interviewed by UNIVISION, for a three part series by Enrique Gratas’ Ultima Hora. Unfortunately I had a Jr. supervisor who knew nothing about undercover work. I believed that my years of playing undercover roles were over…I started doing them in 1984….and in 2002 some jr. Customs agent felt that it was mandatory for me to follow orders.

I responded to the letter of reprimand with over 30 cases where Customs agents w/o authorization had their pictures posted in the Internet….some by Customs. Within days, almost all such pictures and stories were deleted from the net.

Miguel Angel Contreras on August 2, 2009 at 7:12 pm

I replied to Vato directly here but I’ll put this out there for everyone. We would like nothing more than to round up bus loads of aliens (and we know the locations where we could do just that) and deport their asses. I could arrest people all day in southern Arizona or anywhere else in the country at this point. The problem is that immigration enforcement is always brought to a screeching halt by politics.
It all comes down to politics. I am a former BPA and prior LE before that. I would love to do what we are supposed to be doing but don’t blame ICE agents (IEAs, DOs, SAs, etc). Talk to the politicians. Talk to Obama and Napolitano.
USBP Tucson doesn’t patrol I-10. They don’t patrol Tucson. Do you know why? Because if they caught anyone that far from the border, it makes them look bad. So the brass says not to patrol those areas. No patrols equals no arrests. No arrests in Tucson or on I-10 must mean they have the border locked up tight? TOTAL BS. But that’s what they are selling to Washington and the public. With that kind of mentality at the upper levels, how can you hold any field agent responsible.

seanjon on October 12, 2009 at 1:11 am