Trump Official's Last-Day Deal With ICE Union Ties Biden's Hands
WASHINGTON — A whistleblower complaint filed Monday said a top Trump homeland security official sought to constrain the Biden administration’s immigration agenda by agreeing to hand policy controls to the pro-Trump union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The complaint accuses Kenneth Cuccinelli of “gross mismanagement, gross waste of government funds and abuse of authority” over the labor agreements he signed with the immigration agents’ union the day before President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Cuccinelli — an immigration hard-liner whose legal legitimacy to serve in senior positions at the Department of Homeland Security was contested — essentially sought to tie Biden’s hands, according to the complaint.
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“This abuse of authority is shocking,” wrote David Z. Seide, a lawyer representing the whistleblower, whom he described as “a current federal employee who wishes to remain anonymous” and who “possesses information concerning significant acts of misconduct” by Cuccinelli.
A senior homeland security official confirmed that since Biden’s inauguration, officials have been meeting to discuss the implications of the ICE labor agreements. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
One clause in the contract requires homeland security leaders to obtain “prior affirmative consent” in writing from the union on changes to policies and functions affecting agents. It also appears to allow the ICE union to argue that it can reject changes such as Biden’s recent order to focus on violent criminals and not prioritize other immigrants who entered the country illegally.
Under a federal law, an agency head has 30 days to cancel such an agreement once it is signed, after which it goes into effect.
The agreements essentially require the homeland security secretary — currently David Pekoske in an acting capacity — to notify the union in writing about any elements of the agreements that he may disapprove. In each case, that element would be sent back for further negotiations.
But the agreements signed by Cuccinelli suggest that the union could appeal any such rejection to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. And once the agreements take effect, they purport to “irrevocably” block the government’s ability to challenge anything about the concessions to the ICE union for the next eight years.
Cuccinelli said in an email that the previous labor agreement with the ICE union had “languished for many years, through several administrations” and argued that the new deal he signed was in the best interest of the agency.
“I absolutely deny any mismanagement, waste of government funds and any misuse of authority,” Cuccinelli said. “The agreement is entirely legal and appropriate, or we wouldn’t have executed it.”
He declined to respond to a question inquiring how the agreement would affect Biden’s directives to ICE.
Chris Crane, the union president who signed the agreements with Cuccinelli, did not respond to a request for comment. The ICE union, which represents more than 7,500 agents and employees, endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Seide, a senior counsel at the Government Accountability Project, which represents whistleblowers, filed the six-page complaint with Congress, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general and the Office of the Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers. He attached copies of three “memorandums of understanding” signed Jan. 19 by Cuccinelli and Crane.
Among other things, Seide’s complaint portrayed the agreements as “effectively giving the union unprecedented veto authority in many areas,” including enhancing its power “to slow and impede agency activities by requiring its express written approval prior to implementing changes in the conditions of employment” for agents.
One of the agreements, for example, says: “No modifications whatsoever concerning the policies, hours, functions, alternate work schedules, resources, tools, compensation, and the like of or afforded employees or contractors shall be implemented or occur without the prior affirmative consent” in writing by the union.
The complaint also characterized the agreements as granting “outsize” levels of “official time” — compensation for time spent on union activities — that vastly exceeded what other public employee unions received, the complaint said. Seide estimated that these concessions by Cuccinelli would cost taxpayers several million dollars a year.
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