Ed Gonzalez, sheriff of Texas’s most populous county, said Monday he had withdrawn his nomination to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Biden, a decision that will further prolong the five-year lack of leadership in agency at the center of the controversial debate on immigration into the nation.
In a series of Twitter posts, Gonzalez, who is currently the sheriff of Harris County, noted that his nomination for director of ICE, which was announced in April 2021, had been stalled in Congress for more than a year. In a letter to Mr Biden over the weekend, Gonzalez said he had come to the conclusion that withdrawing his name from the nomination process was “in the best interests of the nation we love”.
“I come to this difficult decision with the understanding that the challenges of preserving both the integrity of America’s borders and the global position of our country as a beacon of light for those seeking freedom and opportunity have never been greater.” , Gonzalez wrote in his June 25 letter. , which was received by CBS News.
The ICE, which oversees immigration arrests, deportations, a growing immigration detention system and transnational crime investigations, has not had a Senate-confirmed director for more than five years since the Obama administration ended. Sarah Saldanha, the last ICE director confirmed by the Senate, resigned in January 2017.
In recent years, under the Democratic and Republican administrations, the ICE has become a frequent target of criticism from progressive Democrats and activists, some of whom have called for its removal.
These calls intensified during the Trump administration, which expanded the groups of unauthorized immigrants arrested by the ICE and instructed the agency to pursue some of its most controversial policies, including the mass separation of migrant families along the U.S. border. Mexico in 2017 and 2018
The Biden administration has reviewed ICE’s immigration functions, generally limiting arrests to immigrants thought to pose a threat to national security or public safety and recent border crossings.
But the agency continues to face criticism from Mr Biden.
Progressive activists continue to criticize the ICE for detaining thousands of immigrants, while Republican lawmakers have accused the Biden administration of handcuffing ICE deportation agents through enforcement guidelines that say they encourage illegal immigration.
In addition to delaying confirmation, Gonzalez mentioned in his letter to Mr. Biden a desire to devote his “full, inseparable attention” to his post in Harris County, citing an increase in violent crime and the prison population in the jurisdiction.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Ed Gonzalez
It is unclear whether there are other reasons behind Gonzalez’s decision. Representatives of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, its parent agency, addressed questions to the White House.
In a statement Monday, the White House said Gonzalez “would be a great ICE leader.”
“We thank Sheriff Gonzalez for his willingness to serve the baseless allegations against his family, and we thank Homeland Security Secretary Peters for his hard and persistent work in support of the nomination,” the White House added.
Gonzalez’s nomination was postponed earlier this year following allegations of domestic violence that surfaced in a previous, unrelated trial at Houston Community College (HCC).
The case involved an affidavit from an HCC official who said he had been summoned for a domestic dispute at Gonzalez’s house, although Melissa Gonzalez, Gonzalez’s wife and former HCC deputy chancellor, had previously said she had never filed such a complaint.
“Any allegation that I have filed or filed a complaint against my husband is false and defamatory,” Melissa Gonzalez wrote in a March letter. “To be clear, the allegations made in the affidavits, as they relate to me, my husband or my marriage, are completely untrue.”
Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Committee rejected the vote on Gonzalez’s nomination after Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma voiced concern over the annual lawsuit.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee has launched a bipartisan investigation into the alleged domestic violence report, according to documents obtained by CBS News. According to a commission member, the investigation did not confirm or offer any evidence in support of the allegations of domestic violence.
A summary of the findings of the investigation, drawn up by the commission’s democratic majority, calls into question the allegations made by the former HCC police officer, according to documents received from CBS News.
The summary states that the commission found “discrepancies” between the police officer’s oaths, which initially raised allegations of domestic violence, and his oaths. The official told the commission he did not report the allegations about Gonzalez, although he initially said otherwise, according to the summary.
HCC also told the commission that the camera footage quoted by the former employee in the original affidavit did not exist.
Mr Biden was instructed by ICE to avoid, in general, the detention of families with minors, pregnant or breastfeeding women, victims of serious crime and veterans of the US military.
The Biden administration has also lifted large-scale arrests of ICE jobs and expanded so-called “protected areas,” where agents generally do not have to arrest immigrants to include disaster areas, gathering places for children and social services.
In September 2021, Home Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ordered ICE agents to focus on detaining immigrants who endangered public safety or national security, as well as migrants who entered the United States illegally after November 2020.
The Mallorca directive generally protected unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions from arrest if they had lived in the United States for years.
But those rules were suspended over the weekend because the court ruled them illegal. The Biden administration is appealing this decision, which stems from a lawsuit filed by Republican officials in Texas and Louisiana.
More Camilo Montoya-Galves
Camilo Montoya-Galves is an immigration reporter for CBS News. Based in Washington, DC, it reflects immigration and policy.
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