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At a screening for the upcoming “new” Jim Carrey movie, “Fun with Dick and Jane” (a remake) last night, I noticed a big error: the presence of INS agents in the movie.
In a very funny scene, the down and out Dick (Carrey) hangs out with illegal Latinos waiting for work at a local hangout. They are all captured by INS agents, who think Carrey is illegal. Problem is, there is no INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), anymore.
After 9/11, Joe Lieberman and other clueless elected “experts” on “how to avoid another 9/11” got rid of the INS and the U.S. Customs Service. They did the idiotic thing and split both agencies’ investigative agents from its inspectors, making two new agencies, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection).
This may sound like an inside baseball story, but it should concern all Americans.

Fun w/Mr. Burns & The ICE Princess:
Jim Carrey Running From Now Gone INS Agents
This reorganization of federal law enforcement was an incredibly boneheaded move, as there is an incredible disconnect–and rivalry–between the two agencies that have similar, competing missions. The bureaucracy getting in the way between agents and inspectors, respectively, of the two agencies is the worst thing that could have been done in the fight against terrorism and the failing battle to protect our borders. Virtually every ICE agent who has contacted me–whether originally from INS or Customs–supports merging the agencies.
Now, at least two Inspector General reports (PDF here) plus former Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner recommend merging the two agencies (a reason Bonner was forced to resign by the Bush Administration). “There is a simple principle — bureaucracy 101 — that applies here: If you want people to work together, you don’t split them into two separate agencies,” said Bonner told the Washington Times.
A merger of the two agencies is the only way to solve the problem and start on the way to adequately protecting America. Predictably, though, Homeland Security Chief (a/k/a “Mr. Burns”) is against the merger, so he can protect the disastrous ICE turf for his unqualified ICE Princess in Waiting, . He’d rather help his cronies than do what’s right in protecting our nation’s security. And he’s enlisted the tax-paid PR people at DHS and ICE, like Russ Knocke and Dean Boyd, to denounce the Inspector General Reports.
The morale at ICE is so low that few agents are predicted to attend, for example, tonight’s “Holiday” Party for Michigan ICE agents hosted by Special Agent in Charge (a/k/a “Abu Moskowitz”). That says a lot about how low morale is for the mostly male agents, since the “party” is being held at the Town Pump Tavern, “where the bar girls look like Playboy models,” says one bar reviewer, and “the bartenders are Playboy HOT,” says another). They hate him and the dysfunctional goings on at ICE, of which his stature as their boss is a function. Moskowitz has made arbitrary job transfers, switching experienced agents from traditional Customs and Immigration fields and vice versa. No one is happy with the merger of these two formerly separate fields.
Seeing the Jim Carrey movie, I thought, “Who are the ignoramuses who wrote this? Don’t they know that there is no more INS to round up illegals, just a dysfunctional, aimless ICE that allows the problem to hemorrhage and is separated from inspectors?”
Then I saw the explanation: In a fast driving seen, a Gore-Lieberman 2000 sign flashed for a second in the background. Apparently, this movie has been on the shelf for a while. It was made in 2000 before the creation of Homeland Security, dismantling of INS and Customs, and creation of ICE.
Since then, Americans decided against the failed Gore-Lieberman partnership as an idea whose time was never. The failed experiment of ICE should meet the same fate.
It’s time to merge ICE and CBP, so federal agents in charge of enforcing immigration, money-laundering, and smuggling laws can actually do their jobs. “Fun with Mike (Chertoff) and Julie (Myers)” is not a moving picture we need to see.