See, earlier, by James Fulford: 21 Savage, Illegal Alien Rapper, Is The Guy Who Said “I Don’t Think People Really Understand How Hard It Is to Be Black”

That an illegal alien felon has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not news. The component of ICE that made the arrest is presumably the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) section. VDARE.com was, of course, all over the news. However, even James Fulford missed the two most important implications of the arrest of rapper 21 Savage. Even those as well versed as Fulford is often miss important details, details that only one with decades deep in the immigration bureaucracy would know, which I have addressed before.

But let me get to the real important issues, issues dealing with the current failures of the organization of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its law enforcement components, in the case of 21 Savage, the components that failed; ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), ICE ERO, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO).

The major underlying issue for someone in the know is that HSI and OFO are the results of combining two functions of the former U.S. Customs Service (USCS) and the legacy U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). HSI is supposed to track down and deport illegal aliens at large, especially those working illegally in the United States. OFO is responsible for inspecting arriving aliens and determining their admissibility to the United States.

Both components of DHS are dominated by legacy USCS employees, for HSI former USCS Special Agents and for OFO, legacy USCS Customs Inspectors. Since the creation of DHS in 2002. I dealt with this issue back when I was so unceremoniously removed by the censors at Google. [RINOs Rush To Legitimize The Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty, by Federale, Federale Blog, August 7, 2014] Thanks, Wayback Machine!

Consequently, immigration enforcement are not priorities for either HIS. Generally, convicted felons are the responsibility of ERO, but both HSI and ERO are supposed to be doing interior enforcement in general, and should be doing city patrol and area control in particulary. Nor is immigration enforcement a priority for OFO. The legacy Customs employees of both components just don’t care about illegal aliens with guns or illegal aliens coming to the United States with the intent to overstay their period of admission. ICE HSI legacy Customs managers also have it in for President Trump because of his immigration enforcement plans, something I predicted would happen.

First, the background on 21 Savage:

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) said they “arrested unlawfully present United Kingdom national Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph AKA ’21 Savage’ during a targeted operation with federal and local law enforcement partners early Sunday in metro Atlanta. Mr. Abraham-Joseph was taken into ICE custody as he is unlawfully present in the U.S. and also a convicted felon.” ICE’S note continued, “Mr. Abraham-Joseph initially entered the U.S. legally in July 2005, but subsequently failed to depart under the terms of his nonimmigrant visa and he became unlawfully present in the U.S. when his visa expired in July 2006. In addition to being in violation of federal immigration law, Mr. Abraham-Joseph was convicted on felony drug charges in October 2014 in Fulton County, Georgia.” It concluded, “Mr. Abraham-Joseph is presently in ICE custody in Georgia and has been placed into removal proceedings before the federal immigration courts. ICE will now await the outcome of his case before a federal immigration judge to determine future actions.” [21 Savage Arrested by ICE and Could Be Deported, by Corinne Heller, EOnline, February 3, 2019]

To someone with long experience in immigration enforcement, there are two important issues. The first issue is that 21 Savage entered the United States as a child either on a valid Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV), in this case most likely a B-2 NIV, generally referred to as a tourist visa. He may also have been admitted as an alien using the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Also of import is that he appears to be originally from the British possession of Dominica, which is very poor and a source of illegal immigration.

Now, as a British citizen at the time, 21 Savage was eligible for the VWP, but it was unlikely that he was coming with the intent of being a tourist. Now, the statement by the ICE official stated he was on a visa. Presumably the spokesman knew the difference between a visa and a NIV and was just speaking casually but did say “visa” because 21 Savage did not enter on the VWP. Now, this alone is suspicious.

Why was a British national issued a B-2 NIV, when one was not needed, as the VWP was available to him and his family? The reason is that many illegal aliens think that obtaining an NIV and just overstaying their period of admission is safer than using the VWP. For the record, the ICE spokesman quoted above says the visa expired. The visa is just a permit to apply for admission to the United States and is not related to the period of admission to the United States. What the above spokesman is referring to was the date of expiration of the period of admission.

The illegal aliens who think the NIV is better than the VWP for overstaying do so because it is easier for them to fool State DMVs and employers if they can show a visa (NIV), as opposed to the VWP, which there is no “visa” to show while in the United States. There is one advantage, though, to using an NIV as opposed to the VWP, which is that NIV holders have access to the immigration courts, while VWP aliens do not. However, ICE is notorious for failing to remove VWP aliens.

Generally, many illegal aliens have a notion that the NIV they obtain protects them somehow from arrest and deportation. That belief is wrong, but common. The important issue here though is why did a CBP Officer admit this family from Dominica, a poor island, and not immediately refuse them entry? Most likely they all appeared together on a flight, and their intent would have been immediately obvious to any legacy INS Immigration Inspector before the merger of the INS and USCS in 2003.

From personal experience your correspondent can tell you, if an alien from a VWP eligible county shows up with a B-2 NIV, that rings immediate alarm bells. Why would a family go through the expense of obtaining an NIV if they were eligible for the free VWP? The answer is that they would only do that if they were intent on overstaying their period of admission. That obvious issue did not appear to the CBP Officer, who was likely responding to the legacy USCS managers in OFO who did not care about illegal aliens.

The second issue is that nothing was done about 21 Savage while he was employed illegally, nor while he was bringing guns to school or getting arrested for drug dealing. That was because ICE in general, and HSI specifically, did not care about immigration enforcement after the merger.

Instead of HSI Special Agents conducting interior enforcement, visiting schools, following up on reports from the public, or conducting employment raids that would have identified and arrested 21 Savage’s parents, or him during his rap career, HSI did nothing but pursue American sex criminals, e.g. being ICE SVU, or bitching out to Hollywood or the National Football League.

So, for a number of years legacy Customs managers in HSI and OFO made overstaying a NIV easy for 21 Savage, his family who brought him, and millions of other illegal aliens who used and abused tourist visas, known colloquially as overstays in the immigration enforcement business.

The other major issue is the continuing failure of ICE to spotlight and endorse enforcement. In the public response to the arrest of 21 Savage, the ICE spokesman refers to a time worn phrase used by Deep State resisters to increased enforcement, “targeted operation,” which within ICE ERO is a timeworn cliché used to assure illegal aliens that ICE is not out conducting raids, roadblocks, and other public enforcement methods to find and arrest illegal aliens.

Rapper 21 Savage was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Atlanta Sunday morning, on the grounds that he is actually from the United Kingdom and overstayed his visa, according to reports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and TMZ. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested unlawfully present United Kingdom national Sha Yaa Bin Abraham-Joseph AKA ’21 Savage’ during a targeted operation with federal and local law enforcement partners early Sunday in metro Atlanta,” ICE spokesman Brian Cox told the AJC. “Mr. Abraham-Joseph was taken into ICE custody as he is unlawfully present in the U.S. and also a convicted felon.” Savage was convicted of felony drug charges in 2014 in Fulton County, Georgia. [21 Savage Arrested by ICE, May Be Deported, by Jem Aswad, Variety, February 3, 2019]

The Deep State resistance in ICE ERO for some reason does not want to perform the enforcement actions that would result in more arrests, more deportations, and putting fear into illegal aliens, fear that would encourage self-deportation. ICE and CBP OFO just don’t want to do their jobs. They are the Deep State. Time for President Trump to end “targeted operations” and move to an Operation Wetback strategy of public immigration enforcement.