Here’s a great federal government in action story for you…

GOOD IDEA:  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents checking military installations throughout the country.  Apparently since 9-11, the feds have been cracking down on those in the country illegally having access to military bases.  Just in April, 18 foreign nationals were arrested in San Diego.  Apparently they worked for a contractor to the Navy and all 18 had valid credentials to go in and out of the 32nd Street Naval Station.

POOR EXECUTION:  There is an AP Wire Story today ‘announcing’ that the ICE folks are now going to go to the Camp Pendleton Marine Base and "see if any illegal immigrants are working there.’

In the story, you have AP reporting that the federal authorities have said that they are going to Pendleton on this mission — and then Michael Unzueta, the acting special agent in charge of the San Diego ICE office says, "I don’t know that they (base officials) know we’re coming yet."

Naturally base officials, caught with their pants down, declined to comment.  (Probably someone is embarrassed that there could be foreign nationals coming onto their base, WITH VALID ID.)

So, we have the illegal immigrants who will know ICE is coming (undoubtedly this AP story will make the local newspaper tomorrow), and the base personnel have no clue.  Dysfunction reigns supreme?  But wait, there’s more.  Unzueta says in the article that it will take four to six months to conduct the ‘review’ of personnel.  Hello???  What am I missing here?  It doesn’t seem that overly complex.  How about a sign at the exit to the base… "All personnel coming onto this will be asked to demonstrate proof of legal residency."

Well, we wouldn’t want to set our expectations too high.

I guess until they sort it out, the only green card these employees will have to show is their Amex, as they spend their federal government paychecks!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.