Leaked ICE Manual Shows Gov't Allowing Informants To Engage In Illegal Behavior, Impersonate Lawyers, Journalists, And Doctors
from the black-hats-v.-black-hats dept
The 9/11 attacks gave us the DHS. And from that atrocity came ICE. We used to get by with Customs and a Border Patrol, but no, we needed something additional that tied the homeland's "security" to a new, deeply brutal form of "customs enforcement." Normally, the word "customs" would suggest the rounding up of illegal imported goods or the collection of duty payments from incoming arrivals.
Instead, we were handed an agency that concerns itself mainly with ejecting people from the country in the most aggressive way possible, cheered on by White House officials and a large group of Americans who view our closest southern nation with deep suspicion and a touch of xenophobia. ICE's current activities aren't the fault of the Trump Administration, but this administration has done more than most to take everything that's bad about ICE (which is a lot) and crank it up to 11.
Warrantless raids, misrepresentation of advocacy efforts, deporting critical journalists… these are all part of ICE's playbook. But there's far more to it than this. The official "playbook" for ICE undercover operations basically allow the agency to operate as a criminal operation and engage in illegal activity for the greater good of booting immigrants out of the US.
The guidebook for ICE's undercover operations has been published by Unicorn Riot, which makes no statements about how it obtained this document. Its Twitter account refers to it as a "leak," which suggests this wasn't the result of a FOIA request. Regardless of its origins, it's a harrowing read. Many of the highlights of the 227-page manual [PDF] can be viewed in UR's tweet thread. Other details have been posted at its website, which takes a bullet-pointed trip through the entirety of the document.
What is crystal clear is that ICE undercover operations involve informants who are allowed to engage in criminal activity, including fun stuff like trafficking immigrants, purchasing stolen property, drug dealing, paying bribes, entrapment, and anything else that might be deemed "necessary" to ensure the viability of an investigation.
Informants are strongly encouraged not to engage in violent acts or entrapment, but given enough leeway to perform these acts if deemed necessary. The only thing that changes is the number of government officials receiving reports about these departures from policy guidelines.
If these sanctioned illegal acts happen to turn a profit, everyone wins. ICE itself can partake of funds obtained through illegal activity. Some of this is routed back to informants to purchase whatever's needed to continue the investigation. In many cases, this means funneling funds into purchasing supplies needed for further criminal activity. The funds may also be used to fund ICE itself. It's perfectly acceptable for ICE to use funds derived from the criminal activity of its informants to cover ICE agent overtime.
ICE is also authorized to create shell companies as cover for investigations. In ICE terminology, this is "backstopping" -- providing a credible back story for ICE operations should they happen to be investigated by their investigation targets. This ordained creation of shell companies allows ICE operatives to obtain fake SSNs, brokers licenses, medical degrees, pilots certifications, and immigration documents.
The shell companies themselves are made possible/plausible with the assistance of several federal agencies:
Federally-issued undercover identification/backstopping for undercover proprietary businesses and shell companies can be obtained through the Undercover Operations Unit.
Types of available corporate identification/backstopping include, but are not limited to, the following:
A. Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) (Note: All EINs must be obtained through the Undercover Operations Unit in order to avoid tax issues with the Internal Revenue Service);
B. Dun and Bradstreet reports;
C. Department of Transportation/Motor Carrier numbers;
D. Department of Defense Trade Compliance Registration numbers;
E. Office of Foreign Asset Control License;
F. FAA airplane registration number/certificates;
G. U.S. Coast Guard marine identification; and
H. business credit cards.
Then there's the list of personas undercover informants can adopt, which include priests/clergy, lawyers, doctors, therapists, and "news media." Naturally, some of these roles involve the harvesting of privileged communications -- even though the privilege is assumed by the person the informant is conversing with and certainly not extended by those working for ICE. But, as the handbook, points out, this puts informants in the position of overhearing actually privileged communications due to the nature of the charade, which may find them conversing with real lawyers, members of the clergy, doctors, and therapists.
This is referred to as "Sensitive Circumstances" by the DHS, an official designation that means nothing more than a case-by-case review rather than the blanket approval it extends to other undercover activities.
The guidebook, issued in 2008, may have seen some updates in recent months, but it's unlikely anything was added to rein in ICE's condoned criminal activity. Unicorn Riot notes it has confirmation this manual was still in use as of 2016, so it's not a relic of one particular administration. It apparently predates Obama's election and quite possibly extends into Trump's.
This shows how far our government is willing to go to enforce its laws. It will condone the breaking of laws in the name of enforcing them. The handbook may as well be named "End Justifies The Means" -- a 272-page compendium of acceptable means that would be unacceptable if anyone other than the government were engaged in them.
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Filed Under: backstopping, dhs, ice, impersonation, informants, training manual, undercover
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No matter how far wrong we've gone, there is nothing stopping is from going back and getting on course. The sooner the better.
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The worst abuses of public trust tend to happen during the reign of popular presidents, and are only revealed during the time of unpopular presidents. One of the best things about the Nixon presidency was that the shocking revelations about the Johnson administration finally spilled out into the public. It's been a long time, but hopefully Trump will become another Nixon, and many Obama-era abuses that "the resistance" never seemed to have any problem with (until Trump took the reins) will finally see the light of day.
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This one is on Bush 2.0.
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> elected in 2008.
And then spent eight years in office with no leaked handbook.
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"Trump has kept his campaign promises"
I think there are two words that fit this well: citation needed
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Consistency is only a good thing if you're not a nutcase.
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"I'm going to bring jobs back to America."
Women's Unemployment is at the lowest in 21 years.
Minority Unemployment is at the lowest ever recorded.
"I'm going to build a wall."
Going up as we speak.
You may not like it or agree, but he's doing what he said.
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Citation needed.
Last I heard, some relatively small amount of funding had been allocated to repair (and maybe extend) existing, approved fencing designs, none of which come anywhere close to the wall he's talked about. So far as I'm aware, that's as close to anything like construction on a border wall as we've come.
For that matter, if the wall were indeed "going up as we speak", why would Trump be insisting so hard that Congress allocate funds ($25 billion, often cited as the full cost of the project) to it in a bill to fix the family-separation-at-the-border problem?
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Misleading characterization
Enforcing laws had nothing to do with it, dearie. This is about meeting objectives, and those objectives are the results of directives that can at best loosely be characterized as being inspired by laws.
Basically, once laws are filtered through politics and convenience, we end up with a setup for organized crime that has been molded to be reasonably matched to current politicians' pockets and propaganda in order to benefit from significant streams of taxpayer money on a continuing basis.
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Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
> nation with deep suspicion and a touch of xenophobia
Well, when Mexico's leading presidential candidate is telling his entire country to leave Mexico and illegally flood into the U.S., that suspicion is both justified and hardly xenophobic.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador: "And soon, very soon — after the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world. Migrating to the United States is a human right. All Mexicans should leave their towns and find a life in the United States."
Can you imagine if an American presidential candidate told the American people, "It's over folks. This country is so horrible and corrupt that it's a lost cause. I encourage all Americans to just leave and find somewhere else to live. Pick up whatever you can carry and just go to Canada because I'm not going to do anything to try and make this country livable for you. But vote for me anyway before you go!"
This is the same guy who has proposed granting amnesty to Mexican drug cartels. America is now Mexico's social safety net, and that's a very good deal for the Mexican ruling class, who can continue to live their opulent and corrupt lifestyles without fear of being ousted by their increasingly dissatisfied citizens. Mexico just sends them north for us to deal with.
Apparently in Cushing's world, anything but full-throated endorsement of that nonsense makes us "xenophobic".
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Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
Original in Spanish:
“Y ya pronto, muy pronto, al triunfo de nuestro movimiento, vamos a defender a los migrantes de México, de América Central, de todo el continente americano y a todos los migrantes del mundo que por necesidad tienen que abandonar sus pueblos para irse a buscar la vida a Estados Unidos, es un derecho humano que vamos a defender para todos los mexicanos y para los migrantes”.
*The context here is that he is commenting on the ongoing imprisonment and inhumane treatment of immigrants. He is not telling anyone to go to the US, he is saying that those who chose to go should be treated with respect and dignity, as human beings.*
Translation:
"And soon, very soon - after the triumph of our movement - we will defend all of the migrants of Mexico, of Central America, of the whole American continent, and all of the migrants of the world who by necessity have to abandon their towns to find a life in the United States, it is a human right that we will defend for all Mexicans and for all migrants.”
Source: https://mexico.quadratin.com.mx/pide-lopez-obrador-intervencion-urgente-de-la-onu-ante-ninos-migrant es/
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Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
While You might present a source that provides different context, it seems your big evidence was a frankenbite designed to produce aggression where there is none.
But sure, criticizing the hypocrisy of running human and drug trafficking rings to stop the human and drug traffickers from Mexico from invading our country means lets just give up our country.
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Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
Mexican nationalists could be following a similar ideology. Keeping in mind that Mexico lost much of its territory due to illegal immigration into what was then Mexico, the same tactic could be applied in reverse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_(Mexico)
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Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
Even if everything you said in your post is true...how in fuck's name does it disprove allegations that ICE is being cheered by "a large group of Americans who view our closest southern nation with deep suspicion and a touch of xenophobia"?
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Re: Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
And, by the by, it's not.
So yes, Mr. 1701, you're spreading an Internet hoax based on a quote intentionally taken out of context. You either knew that, or you were taken in by it because you did not bother to verify the story before sharing it -- I guess you must have just believed it because it reinforced your existing beliefs.
And if your existing beliefs were that Mexico wants to flood America with immigrants...well yeah, dogg, that sounds a little xenophobic to me.
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Re: Xenophobic? Riiiighhht...
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Xenophobia is not about Mexicans wanting to flee to the US...
Xenophobia is about calling the Mexicans seeking to flee to the US criminal and rapist.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure our peerless leader here in the US would celebrate if all the blacks, latins and sundry non-whites all got the fuck out of dodge to wherever (with a poor white person under each arm!). And the thing is, we all occasionally will have an inclination to move to greener pastures when the one we're in is looking barren.
But that doesn't mean migrants are violent or shiftless or malicious, and xenophobia is about looking at those less fortunate (such as migrants) and assuming they are.
And yet, we've been hearing that a lot. We've been hearing about how high percentages of crime come from settling immigrants which is just plain not true. We've been hearing about latin gangs not concerned at all about the numerous and populous gangs of US-born citizens we have right here in the US.
And we don't hear about how our nations totally contributed to the causes of these migratory shifts, or in those cases we didn't, completely neglected to address the situation before it turned into a refugee problem.
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Re: Xenophobia is not about Mexicans wanting to flee to the US...
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I think you meant "...crank it up to 9/11"
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When?
When those laws are different for Every other human..Based on geography, skin color, ..., ....
But Esp when its ONLY 1 area of this planet..because they are THERE..
WE try to run around this planet FIXING problems, All of them for the Middle east oil corps(not the nations), and we DONT even help those countries in our OWN area..
We have paid billions to fight drugs in South America...and most of it went to the drug lords..WE PAID for them..
still do..
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In other words, this administration is the first one in quite some time that has decided to actually ENFORCE THE LAWS THAT ARE ON THE BOOKS!. Laws that were created by PREVIOUS administrations. Laws that WE AS AMERICANS elected him to uphold.
It is hardly his, nor his supporters fault that previous administrations allowed the situation to deteriorate so badly that the only way to fix it now is with aggressive enforcement.
If we do as Tim seems to prefer, then nothing gets fixed and the situation continues to get worse. You have to be walking through life with blinders on (or one'e head inserted in one's rectum) to not see the damage that this unchecked stream of non-citizens coming into America and never leaving. So let's criticize the only someone in ages who actually wants to FIX THE FREAKING PROBLEM!!
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So uh what part of that would be "enforcing the laws that are on the books", Reno?
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Why, one would almost get the impression he's not actually interested in just and equal application of the law at all.
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Really? It soulds a lot like 8 U.S. Code § 1158 - Asylum is not being enforced:
If that law were being enforced, you wouldn't hear about asylum seekers being turned back at the borders or ICE detaining asylum seekers at the border.
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Family Detention
ICE is detaining people who crossed over the border illegally. At this point, it is doing so in exactly the same manner Obama did. You just didn't care when Obama did it.
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The compulsion to accept asylum seekers...
...may, agreed, not be part of ICE or CBP policy.
But it is chartered in explicit detail in the Geneva conventions and through international law.
Our dear president may decide to dismiss the Geneva Conventions (though at risk of international tribunal, if ever he finds himself in a position to be extradited to Nuremberg), and according to US policy all US soldiers and officers of law enforcement are mandated to understand and obey international law. So if they individually turn away or deport asylum seekers, they can be held accountable.
Also, it's cruel and inhumane. Asylum seekers generally are running from something much scarier than the misery they're going into.
As for why not keeping them imprisoned, that's because the process takes years, sometimes decades. And imprisonment for that long is also cruel and inhumane.
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Re: The compulsion to accept asylum seekers...
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But these are often wars and wartime circumstances. Are you going to tell me we should reject them because their circumstances don't match your technical definitions? Are you that cold and heartless?
The danger they are trying to escape doesn't care whether it meets your notions of what is or isn't legit, and neither, for that matter, does that change refusing them from a crime against humanity. By refusing them, our officials responsible (down to the individual arresting officer) can be tried and held accountable by international tribunal.
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Given that the actions you are talking about can only possibly happen on the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders, and neither Mexico nor Canada are currently at war, no, these *aren't* wars and wartime circumstances.
And it doesn't make me cold and heartless to tell you that you're clueless about international or US law. The discussion here, and your understanding of relevant laws or lack thereof doesn't make any difference in the lives of the people who are seeking asylum. I'm not making policy, neither are you, and it's likely that no one else reading this is either. But on the off chance that you run into a policy-maker, you should have *valid* arguments available, so that you don't spew a lot of bogus garbage and have the policy maker say, "Wow, that dude was really clueless."
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Deporter-in-Chief
You can be forgiven for having that false impression. The media gave great cover to Obama. Even when they did report on his misdeeds, they did so with little enthusiasm and liberals at large did not latch onto it and whip themselves into a frenzy.
Tim is engaging in selective outrage.
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Obama ICE and. Trump ICE
Techdirt was once focused on topics like copyright enforcement abuse (which ICE was a major culprit) before taking a more SJW turn and becoming an open borders advocate.
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There's that term again. SJW
Perhaps Techdirt has gone SJW because so many social justice matters have become critical.
Copyright is one such matter, but its far from the only one.
Incidentally, when you use the term SJW, Anonymous Coward it implies that you are against social justice, id. est. pro-authoritarianism. I get that you don't like some people who are reactionary or extremist, but that has less to do with what their intention is, and more to do with the struggle to think things through.
Using SJW implies you don't think everyone should get a fair shake, and that does make you antagonistic to anyone you so categorize, not to mention those of us who are inclusion absolutists.
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Re: There's that term again. SJW
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False Dichotomy
Oh, do elaborate!
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Re: The new N-word. SJW
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/07/why-social-justice-warri or-a-gamergate-insult-is-now-a-dictionary-entry/
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Re: Re: The new N-word. SJW
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Re: Re: Re: The new N-word. SJW
You are nothing of the sort. That's why you get mocked.
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Re: Re: The new N-word. SJW
The problem is that when one takes on a particular persona, there are other things that get left behind (I have left this link previously, apparently you did not follow it. Do so, now. So that you will not live in such ignorance forever). If one is only about social justice, they might forget that there are other, legitimate, points of view. Labels don't necessarily qualify or quantify anyone, but they are easy to apply. Often, though, they are not just inaccurate, but don't tell a whole truth. Which is as much as a lie.
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"because Mike Masnick was bothered by it"
So...open psychological warfare.
Antagonistic input for human beings.
You're not participating in this forum, rather you're attacking with psychological payloads.
Well, at least we know you're outright hostile.
To be fair, that is exactly Karl Rove's campaign strategy for George W. Bush, and has since been part of the GOP campaign.
It's also Putin's strategy for inciting unrest in the US and influencing the 2016 election.
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Re: Obama ICE and. Trump ICE
Techdirt was once focused on topics like copyright enforcement abuse (which ICE was a major culprit) before taking a more SJW turn
We've always been in favor of more open borders. Not "open borders" but, "more open borders" and have written about it for years, going back to the Bush administration. But, hey, if you want to lie and pretend we've taken a turn go for it.
I'm kind of amazed at how people suddenly think we've changed based on whether or not they like the person in the White House.
As for the use of the stupid and meaningless "SJW" phrase, I would guess that most people you think of as "SJWs" disagree with most of the stuff we believe here. But, sure, just because we disagree with us on immigration, you're now going to label us. Because that's... real smart.
We're not "social justice warriors." We're just advocates for civil liberties, freedom and innovation. I apologize if that offends you.
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Funds obtained through illegal activity.
Illegal business tends to be more profitable than legal business. Business that is hazardous but only as profitable as legit business is avoided. Business that is not hazardous is usually not prohibited.
So, giving our law enforcement to engage in illicit business essentially turns them into a racketeering syndicate. The mob.
No wonder everyone wins. Except the dead people and the incarcerated people and the people who got their stuff seized.
I've already ranted elsewhere about how profits already drive police forces to seize property or (in history) torture confessions out of people. Once there's a profit motive it changes the mission of the institution.
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And they're supposed to be the good guys?
Essentially ICE got infiltrated and taken over by organized crime and needs to be shut down ASAP
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Uh no? They are supposed to do what they are paid for. They are not paid for being good guys.
Uh, that's like saying the Mafia got infiltrated and taken over by organized crime.
They are following their missive given by the government within the parameters permitted by the government. That's all. Completely outrageous by design.
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US Supreme Court Upholds Travel Ban
Not a surprise, though, as the unlimited immigration that Techdirt favors is simply invasion by hostile foreigners lacking our traditions -- regardless of religion and country.
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"And from that atrocity [the creation of DHS] came ICE." - it's an atrocity to want to prevent future attacks of the sort that 9/11 was? And ICE didn't really come from it, since ICE wasn't *created*, it was just INS's enforcement arm with a new name and Customs investigators added in. And then the you go on to ignore the fact that the I in ICE stands for immigration and harps on how this doesn't match their idea of what "customs" is.
ICE has a lot of things to complain about, but at least educate yourself as to what you're complaining about, so you don't say ignorant things in your first paragraph and keep people from reading the rest of what you've got to say.
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Re: ICE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks#9/11_Commission
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Re: Re: ICE
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