Well, Greg, they tend to be a little more careful about following the rules when there are people making videos - that's the purpose we're supposed to serve.

I've worked with law enforcement officers a lot, in my 25+ years as a federal investigator, and in the last 6 years that I've spent monitoring our county jail. I think most police officers want to do a good job. Sometimes they make mistakes, and sometimes they break under stress.

But there are some cops for whom machismo is very important, and they can easily develop abusive attitudes - especially when a macho attitude is dominant in an entire department. And there are some police departments that are just plain corrupt. Years ago, there was a Drug Enforcement Administration office just across the hall from me, and I got to know them quite well. There were certain police departments they would not share information with, because those departments were not to be trusted.

After 9-11, the George W. Bush Administration totally reorganized the immigration agencies, and all of federal law enforcement. I did security clearances for most federal law enforcement agencies until I retired in 1999, and I thouught I had a good understanding of federal law enforcement. Most federal cops are still part of the Department of Justice, and I think that is a good thing because of ties between the Attorney General and the courts - I think it makes federal officers more aware of their obligation to obey the law, not only to enforce it.

But Immigration and Border Patrol was moved from Justice, and Customs was moved from Treasury to become part of the new Department of Homeland Security. There seems to have been a hefty dose of xenophobia behind the establishment of this "Homeland Security" department, and that worries me.

But even back when Immigration (INS) was part of Justice, the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service had some of the poorest employee morale I have seen in any government agency. They were always overstaffed, overwhelmed, and underpaid. Upper managers got great pay, but mid-level law enforcement supervisors rarely made it above GS-11.

Border Patrol Agents and many INS employees were required to have a level of proficiency in speaking Spanish, so many of them were hispanic or were married to hispanics. The Border Patrol still exists, but only to patrol the border. The post-9-11 reorganization established a new agency with the ominous name of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), which now does immigration raids all over the interior of the United States. The Border Patrol used to do the interior raids, and the Border Patrol offices in the interior of the U.S. seemed to have a more relaxed atmosphere. I used to scrounge office space at the Bakersfield office of the Border Patrol, and they were nice, hospitable people.

But our Rapid Response training and other factors have given me a more ominous view of ICE. In the training, we were told that the ICE agents were most likely to speak only English, while the interior Border Patrol agents I knew would have spoken Spanish (and were often Hispanic themselves). And the ICE agents seem to use tactics like stakeouts that the Border Patrol agents of my day would have considered unfair. A favorite ICE tactic is to watch an alien's home until the person leaves on foot, and then pick the person up a block or two away from the safety of an unsearchable house or vehicle.

I used to think I knew the immigration enforcement system well, but all these changes have thrown me off. I'd like to know more about the new system, and especially ICE.

-Joe-