In Trump’s GREAT congressional address yesterday, he mentioned establishing a Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office. Libs began promptly losing their shit. Example 1, Example 2.
This VOICE thing was actually announced in a memo by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on February 20th. I looked up the memo. Here’s the ENTIRE section on VOICE:
D. Establishing the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office
Criminal aliens routinely victimize Americans and other legal residents. Often, these victims are not provided adequate information about the offender, the offender’s immigration status, or any enforcement action taken by ICE against the offender. Efforts by ICE to engage these victims have been hampered by prior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy extending certain Privacy Act protections to persons other than U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, leaving victims feeling marginalized and without a voice. Accordingly, I am establishing the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office within the Office of the Director of ICE, which will create a programmatic liaison between ICE and the known victims of crimes committed by removable aliens. The liaison will facilitate engagement with the victims and their families to ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that they are provided information about the offender, including the offender’s immigration status and custody status, and that their questions and concerns regarding immigration enforcement efforts are addressed.
To that end, I direct the Director of ICE to immediately reallocate any and all resources that are currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens (except as necessary to comply with a judicial order) to the new VOICE Office, and to immediately terminate the provision of such outreach or advocacy services to illegal aliens.
Nothing herein may be construed to authorize disclosures that are prohibited by law or may relate to information that is Classified, Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU), Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES), For Official Use Only (FOUO), or similarly designated information that may relate to national security, law enforcement, or intelligence programs or operations, or disclosures that are reasonably likely to cause harm to any person.
So the whole thing is literally just about keeping victims (and their families) informed on the status of alien criminals who have harmed them. Libs are freaking out over DHS extending the tiniest informational courtesy to victims of criminal aliens. It’s absurd.
UPDATE:
So VOICE has another responsibility: to provide reports on the effect of immigrant crime. From Trump’s January 25 Executive Order on “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”
Sec. 13. Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens.
The Secretary shall direct the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take all appropriate and lawful action to establish within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an office to provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and the family members of such victims. This office shall provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.
The lib perspective here seems to be: you know who ELSE liked quarterly reports? HITLER!!!
🙄
The great Ann Coulter has written on the lack of good data on immigrant crime, e.g. see this article. So quarterly reports sounds like a great step forward.