Katie Pavlich at Townhall pointed something out that didn’t get a lot of attention today on the new DHS memos on immigration.
In the new memo, the Trump administration established a new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office to basically provide different types of information about a criminal alien to their victims.
Here’s Spicer announcing the move:
.@PressSec: "Most critically, the president is empowering #DHS to carry out the immigration laws currently on the books." pic.twitter.com/1tZdHAMzkU
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 21, 2017
Here’s more from the actual memo, explaining the reasoning behind the move:
D. Establishing the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office
Criminal aliens routinely victimize Americans and other legal residents. Often, these victims are not provided adequate information about the offender, the offender’s immigration status, or any enforcement action taken by ICE against the offender. Efforts by ICE to engage these victims have been hampered by prior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy extending certain Privacy Act protections to persons other than U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, leaving victims feeling marginalized and without a voice. Accordingly, I am establishing the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office within the Office of the Director of ICE, which will create a programmatic liaison between ICE and the known victims of crimes committed by removable aliens. The liaison will facilitate engagement with the victims and their families to ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that they are provided information about the offender, including the offender’s immigration status and custody status, and that their questions and concerns regarding immigration enforcement efforts are addressed.
To that end, I direct the Director of lCE to immediately reallocate any and all resources that are currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens to the new VOICE Office, and to immediately terminate the provision of such outreach or advocacy services to illegal aliens.
The most interesting thing to me about this new office is how they are funding it. According to last paragraph above from the memo, they are funding it all money spent on behalf of advocating for illegal aliens. LOL! That’s fantastic!
I’ve no idea how much money this will end up being, but it’s probably more than we’re thinking. After all, Obama was big on advocating for illegals.
Thumbs up to Trump on this one.