Border securityDHS now willing to discuss deportation policy with agents' union

In an effort to head off a possible set back in  court, the Obama administration said earlier this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) agents’ lawsuit to overturn the president’s selective deportation policy should be thrown out court because the agents originally wanted to handle the issues through collective bargaining.

The Washington Times reportsthat the latest administration’s position may be viewed as reversing an earlier administration position, which did not regard implementation of immigration policies as subject to collective bargaining.

In 2011 ICE director John Morton initiated a policy which stipulated that the administration would concentrate deportation efforts on deporting illegal aliens who committed serious crimes. In August 2012, the administration issued an executive order which implemented many of the provisions of the dream Act which had stalled in Congress. One provision instructed ICE agents not to detain and deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States before they turned sixteen.

Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, a leading critic of the administration’s immigration policy, and ICE’s union lawyer, said that agents and officers were told they will be subject to discipline, if they ignored the order.

Federal district judge Reed O’Connor, ruled last month that the law requires agents to arrest any illegal immigrants they find, but delayed his ruling because he was not sure that a court was the right place to decide the issue. He asked both parties to file briefs to explore the issue further.

Christopher Crane, the chief of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council labor union, last year asked for a collective bargaining agreement on the issue of implementing deportation policy, but the administration said the matter was a management decision and was not up for negotiation.

The administration is now saying that since the agents’ union requested the sit-down, such negotiations now provide an alternative to the court ruling, thus making the lawsuit invalid.

“Channeling such disputes through the process established by the [Civil Service Reform Act] —  and not allowing them to proceed directly in district court — is required even where the government employees’ lawsuit purports to be a ‘systemic challenge’ to government policy, rather than a challenge to a disciplinary action,” the administration lawyers said in their filing with the court.

Administration officials say they are still deporting immigrants at a record pace, but according to data from the ICE agents’ lawsuit, the deportation stats have been padded by the deportations of recent arrivals at the border rather than people who are already in the United States.