Report States That FBI is Not Co-operating With ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have ignored or dropped federal criminal leads, or entire federal criminal cases, involving terrorist activities.^[1]

A report by federal officials released Monday, Aug. 13 asserted that the reason was because of ICE disputes with the FBI.^[2]

The report examined 10 cases that began at ICE and were taken over by the FBI, the inspectors general of the Homeland Security and the Justice departments found that seven suffered from lack of cooperation until they were taken over by the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which the FBI controls.^[3]

''We were ... extremely troubled that ICE agents would say that their agents declined to undertake a case of potential national security significance for such petty reasons…[although] while the hostility to the FBI's dominance in the field of terrorist financing investigations is palpable, we have no direct evidence that any ICE agent has actually been derelict.'' the inspectors general wrote in the report; the report stated that the FBI delayed and refused investigative actions that needed court approval, which led ICE agents to avoid leads and cases that would have required FBI involvement.^[4]

Monday Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Judiciary Committee had asked the inspectors general to examine the effectiveness of an agreement between the Homeland Security and Justice departments aimed at addressing the coordination of terrorist financing investigations.^[5] Grassley said he initially looked into complaints about friction between ICE and FBI agents after reports from retired ICE agent Joe Webber, who led the Houston field office.^[6] Webber said the FBI blocked a request for a wiretap on a person who was communicating with someone the Treasury Department had designated a terrorist, according to the senator.^[7]

''It seems obvious that the findings of this report justify concerns about a lack of trust between our two largest federal law enforcement agencies. They need to work together in order to do everything possible to protect Americans in the war on terror,'' Grassley said in a statement.^[8]By way of a hypothetical example, the report asserted that if a case involved two leads – one involving illegal drugs and the other involving terrorism – an agent would pursue the drug lead in order to avoid working with the FBI; in such cases, the agent did not always forward the terrorism lead to the joint task force.^[9]

---

^[1] AP Staff, Report: Disputes Impede Terrorism Probes, Associated Press Newswire, August 14, 2007, available at available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services File.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.