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President Biden’s candidacy to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Administration has abruptly withdrawn from consideration after months of uncertainty, leaving the national security agency detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants without a confirmed director for the sixth consecutive year.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County, Texas, said he notified Biden on Sunday, nearly a year after his Senate confirmation hearing, that he decided to retire “after much prayer and deep consideration.”
“I come to this difficult decision understanding that the challenges of preserving both the integrity of the U.S. borders and the global position of our country as a beacon of light for those seeking freedom and opportunity have never been greater,” he said. write, according to a copy. of his letter obtained by the Washington Post.
Gonzalez, who heads the country’s third-largest sheriff’s agency, said he had decided to devote all his attention to rising crime in the Houston area, where he was first elected in 2016 and he is now in his second term. Homicides have increased, as in other cities in the country, he wrote, and the prison population has increased “beyond capacity,” putting pressure on prison staff.
“All of this leads me to the inevitable conclusion that by 2022, I must devote all my attention and total energy to fulfilling the duties that the people of Harris County chose me to perform,” he wrote.
At the hearing, Biden’s ICE candidate praises immigrants and pledges to maintain “rule of law”
Biden first appointed Gonzalez, a career law enforcement official, in April 2021 to lead an agency that has been a political lightning rod amid partisan debate over immigration arrests and rising numbers. of border services.
Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas called it a “strong option” and urged its speedy confirmation to run the DHS agency with an annual budget of $ 8 billion and more than 20,000 employees throughout. the world. The ICE detains and deports immigrants, but also has a branch of investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, which investigates crimes such as drug trafficking and human trafficking.
Republicans had questioned Gonzalez, a career law enforcement officer, for removing his sheriff’s office from a voluntary program that helps the ICE locate immigrants in county prisons who are charged with crimes and could be deportees. But Gonzalez stated at his July 2021 confirmation hearing before the Senate National Security and Government Affairs Committee that he would maintain the “rule of law” and would not end the program, if confirmed.
The committee approved his nomination following party lines, but did not receive a full vote and the chairman had to resubmit his nomination to Congress in January.
In March, Gonzalez’s nomination was reversed when Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), A member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, urged Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN. Y.) and the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) To delay a vote on his nomination. Lankford said he wanted the committee to investigate a complaint made by a former community school police officer that Gonzalez’s wife, Melissa Gonzalez, now president of the community school, had wanted to file a domestic abuse complaint against the sheriff.
The committee conducted a bipartisan investigation and found no evidence to support the allegation, according to a summary of the findings prepared by the majority staff and obtained by The Post.
The committee found that the former police officer who had raised the allegation in a federal lawsuit for discrimination that had nothing to do with the sheriff admitted in an interview with committee staff and a sworn witness that “did not prepare or submit a written report of any kind” on the matter.
The Gonzálezs had denied the accusation and collaborated with the committee’s investigation.
Lankford had said the ICE National Council, which had a controversial relationship with the Obama administration when Biden was vice president, and the Federal Police Foundation brought the prosecution to his attention.
Gonzalez said he had considered withdrawing his nomination for months, but did not want to leave until the investigation had been clarified by him and his family.
“I feel vindicated,” Gonzalez, 53, said in an interview Monday, referring to the committee’s findings.
He said that as a Mexican-American grandson of immigrants, whose family had become poor, being nominated had been “the honor of a lifetime.” Finally, he said, he felt he was no longer willing to wait for the Senate to confirm it.
His supporters said it had been frustrating to see the Gonzalezes face unfounded accusations.
“It’s unfair to everyone involved,” said Jason Spencer, a former spokesman for the sheriff’s office, noting that the ICE has no Senate-confirmed leader since the Obama administration. “It’s such a critical role, and that dysfunctional politics kidnapping it is not in anyone’s best interest.”
The White House issued a statement praising Gonzalez on Monday.
“Sheriff González has the qualifications and experience to do this important job and would have been a great ICE leader,” the White House said in the statement.
The ICE has struggled to find its place under Biden, which has tried unsuccessfully to persuade Congress to pass an immigration bill legalizing the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, and has tried to limit the detention of immigrants. immigration to recent cross-border people and people who pose a threat to public security.
The Biden administration’s leadership over the agency suffered once this month when U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in Texas, a Trump-appointed, abandoned a Department of Homeland Security policy that sought to prevent the majority of undocumented immigrants were arrested. Since Biden took office, immigration arrests inside the United States have dropped sharply, but Tipton’s ruling that he left DHS policy raises questions about how the agency will work in the future. DHS has said it “strongly disagrees” with the ruling and will appeal.