Debbie Schlussel: New ICE Academy Chief: Good News For Immigration Enforcement
Why should you care about the inside baseball at ICE--Immigration & Customs Enforcement--a dysfunctional government agency that is supposed to enforce immigration laws?
Because what happens there gravely affects our nation's security in terms of interior enforcement and deportation of illegal aliens. Those who run ICE at various levels affect immigration enforcement policy more than people realize.
One of those inside baseball moves of interest concerns Matthew Albence--a young (age 36), rapidly-advancing former INS agent. On Monday, he started his new assignment as head of the Office of Investigations at the ICE Academy, where all new ICE agents are trained (at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia).
Since Albence comes from the immigration side of things, this is a good thing--given that immigration is now supposed to be a primary focus of ICE. Some agents have said Albence has little investigative experience, but other instructors can make up for that. Albence's immigration knowledge and experience is far more important, and he is a good leader, we're told.
We think he knows how to look at crime situations and draw conclusions, as he did in a dissertation he wrote on robberies in Illinois (Albence, Matthew T., 1994. "Convenient Targets: An Examination of Convenience Store Robberies in Carbondale, Illinois, From 1986 to 1993." Southern Illinois University at Carbondale), which is among recommended reading by several agencies.
We don't know Albence (sorry, ICE brass--he's not one of our sources), but we know many agents who do and who've worked with him. Albence was the ICE's Deputy Special Agent in Charge for Michigan and Ohio. While his boss, Michigan/Ohio ICE Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz a/k/a "Abu Moskowitz," was and remains universally hated by his agents and colleagues, Albence had a lot of fans--even among legacy Customs agents--among those who've dealt with him. We only wish--in the heart of Islamic America--that Islamo-panderer Abu Moskowitz left and Albence stayed.
One drawback is that Albence worked under top ICE tyrant and egomaniac John Torres, ICE Director of Detention and Removal Operations. Torres is the incompetent, unqualified ICE official who has super-secret hiring committees for jobs for his unqualified extramarital girlfriends and wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money on a week-long ICE confab featuring immigration expert Tommy Lasorda (who was paid $30-$50K for his speech). If there is a human Darth Vader, he is it (only not as smart or articulate).
But we know that Torres' ethics (or, rather, extreme lack thereof) did not rub off on Albence or the many who've had the unfortunate experience of working for ICE's wicked version of George Costanza (Torres)--with all due apologies to Jason Alexander and Larry David.
We're hoping that Albence's youth and dedication to immigration enforcement will signal a change from the old guard of ICE politicos like Abu Moskowitz--more interested in enhancing their careers than protecting the country--to fresher blood (from both the former INS and Customs sides of ICE) and stronger immigration enforcement.
Only time will tell. Matt Albence, we wish you the best.
[We have many ICE agent friends who come from both the former INS and Customs agencies, parts of which became ICE. And we think both branches investigated important crimes. Hopefully, agents won't come down on us for appearing to "favor" one side or the other, as is often the case. We think the merger of these two very different agencies was asinine.]
Posted by Debbie on August 9, 2006 02:05 PM to Debbie Schlussel