Top New York ICE official speaks out after resignation: Biden ‘endangering the public’
The now-former Immigration & Customs Enforcement official in charge of illegal alien removal operations in New York State recently resigned after decades of serving his country because he did not want to be part and parcel to President Joe Biden “endangering the American public” by refusing to allow agents to enforce federal law.
Thomas Feeley told Fox Nation’s “Tucker Carlson Today” he has worked with ICE, its predecessor NIS and other agencies since the George H.W. Bush administration.
In his resignation letter, Feeley described Biden’s intent to prevent the Enforcement Removal Operations sector from doing their job, and that he could not consciously be part of an agency entrusted by the public if it is not doing what is in the public’s interest.
Feeley described both in his letter and to host Tucker Carlson how he was put in situations where hardened illegals had to be released or simply continue on their way without arrest.
“After 30 years of government service, it is time to move on. With the current administration doing everything they can to cripple ERO (Enforcement Removal Operations) endangering the American public and not enforcing the laws passed by Congress, I don’t want to be part of that,” he said.
“As a member of the Senior Executive Service, a service entrusted by the public to ensure whatever administration is in charge follow the law, we currently are not. To fight and argue every day about not arresting or releasing horrible criminal aliens to the street, quite frankly, is disgusting.”
On “Tucker Carlson Today,” Feeley expressed that his role wasn’t simply to deport illegal aliens, but to seek out the worst of the worst:
“Most of the people that I’ve removed in my career, even illegal aliens don’t want in their community, and that says a lot. Because those types of criminal aliens prey on them as well,” he said.
“We’re not talking about farmworkers who are here to make a better life for themselves or nothing like that. We’re talking about murderers, rapists.”
Upon speaking up, Feeley said he was accused of being a devotee of Donald Trump, superseding any nonpartisan responsibility to the public:
“I worked with every president since Papa Bush. The highest award I’ve ever gotten in my career was from the Obama administration. So, a lot of people want to come at me: ‘You’re a Trumper. You’re a Republican’ – No, I’m just an American.”
Feeley said many of the laws he enforced in his longtime role weren’t machinations of the conservative populist real estate mogul but instead bills signed decades ago by the more liberal Bill Clinton:
“[I] want[ed] the laws enforced that were passed by Congress in 1996 and signed by President Clinton. You know, everyone wants to talk about [how] the immigration system’s broke. It’s not broke. It’s just not being enforced. And, you know, that’s the biggest deal.”
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In terms of his claims that Biden is undermining the homeland security apparatus, Feeley described in a previous discussion with Carlson that officials are “splitting hairs” as to whether the White House is asking ICE to break the law versus ignore it:
“Some ICE officials will tell you, ‘Well, the Biden administration isn’t telling us to break the law but they’re definitely telling you not to enforce it,’” he continued. “So if that’s what you’re going to split hairs on, we’re pretty much screwed as a country going down this road,” he said earlier this month.
Feeley revealed the administration directly hired non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to join DHS and ICE following Biden’s inauguration. The retiree let spill that some NGOs began cutting out field office directors and law enforcement officers in order to release migrants into the country – of which he claims to possess email evidence.
“I had a case who the guy was a convicted arsonist and they called me and said, ‘Hey, Mr. Feeley. One of our criteria is if the guy hasn’t been arrested in the past 10 years we need to let them go and we’d like you to release them.’ And I said, ‘I totally get what you’re saying, but… he’s been in prison for 12 years. That’s why he hasn’t been arrested.’ And the answer I got was, ‘We don’t really care,'” he said. “And I had to cut him loose.”
On Fox Nation, Feeley described the job of the ERO – of which he oversaw in the Empire State – as conducting three defined missions:
The Criminal Alien Program would investigate jails that may be holding illegal immigrations that qualify for deportation and take custody of them; the Fugitive Operations Program would seek out people who were truant of their immigration court date, and the program would also seek to arrest those who committed crimes while inside the United States illegally.
“I started doing this job in 1996 when ERO was very, very small. We didn’t have a lot of budget. Our mission was very small. And we got it to a very successful professional law enforcement agency; and now, it’s just getting torn down every day by the Biden administration,” Feeley said.
Host Tucker Carlson called Biden’s actions toward ICE “an attack on the American people” and said America will be intrinsically changed forever because of millions of illegal immigrants who now feel they can “enter our country illegally and plan to stay forever.”
“Nothing like that has ever happened in American history,” the host lamented.
Fox News’ Angelica Stabile contributed to this report.
