ICE needs some heat

If you think ICE (that's Immigration and Customs Enforcement) doesn't march to its own drummer, think again.

They seem to operate with impunity and with no attention to customer service, and they get away with it. Common sense doesn't seem to exist, and certainly common courtesy does not.

Today a detainee in the McHenry County Jail was transported to an ICE office in Chicago for a meeting with an ICE agent about a court date scheduled for next week. To keep the appointment, of course, he had to be transported there. I don't know yet whether he was driven there in a van, or if one of the white "school buses" was used. It's 65-70 miles one-way, either to Broadview or to the ICE office in the Chicago Loop. It's an all-day outing; that's for sure. Figure the cost of two deputies at $300/day and 140 miles at $2-3/mile.

At 4:00PM he telephoned me to say that the ICE agent had refused to meet with him. Hellllooooooo? If he had requested a meeting and the request was approached, why didn't the meeting happen???

Within the past month I telephoned the ICE office and left two messages for Deportation Officer (sounded like) Lupiani (or was it Lou Piani?). Calls on August 23 and August 25 have not been returned. Then on August 31 I called and left a message at the Customer Service Desk. They don't bother to return calls, either. When you call ICE, it is impossible to reach a live person. You can't even reach supervisors or find the Director's office to complain.

Maybe there aren't any live people there. Maybe they count on callers just getting tired of trying. Think so?

Contrast that (lack of) service from ICE with contacts recently with the Cook County Public Defenders office, the Cook Court Criminal Court Evidence Room and the Chicago Police Department Evidence and Recovered Property Room. In every one of those contacts I encountered personnel willing to listen to my request and who provided information quickly and courteously. Thank you and thumbs-up for your service.

To ICE? Two judges and one court clerk were great within the past 18 months. The rest of them? Lousy! They get paid the same, whether they give good service or not. So they don't.