ICE union head on deporting welfare-dependents: ‘We are not permitted to enforce that statute. Period’

The legal prohibition on new immigrants becoming primarily reliant on government assistance for subsistence — or public charges — is never enforced, Chris Crane, an ICE agent and president of the ICE agent’s union told reporters on a conference call Thursday afternoon.

“It is certainly part of what we are supposed to be doing, it is definitely a federal statute within the [Immigration and Nationality Act],” he said when asked about the enforcement of the century-old public charge restriction. “However I will say this: that in my career, I have never seen or heard of the charge being applied in any case to anyone.”

Crane — whose union is in the midst of a lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, ICE Director John Morton, and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas over the administration’s changes to immigration policy — noted that even officers who have been in the agency longer than his ten years have told him they have never seen or heard it employed.

Read the rest of the story: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/13/ice-union-head-on-deporting-welfare-dependents-we-are-not-permitted-to-enforce-that-statute-period/