Benefits of the Language Access Plan for ICE agents

Immigration has become a very polarizing and contentious issues within the Untied States. The primary catalyst for such visceral responses on both sides of the argument often related to illegal immigration. President Donald Trump also caused social unrest due to his racist and often divisive characterizations of immigrants. His overwhelmingly negative stance, which was heavily echoed by his supporters caused widespread disagreement on how to handle illegal immigration. Trump’s rally cry, and what was a heavily influence to his successful election was to build a wall on the Mexican/US border. The opposition vehemently believed that a wall was very “anti-American” and an inefficient use of tax payer funds. In addition to disagreement regarding the border, disagreements also arose on how to properly deter illegal immigration in the first place. Disagreements ranged from the manner in which to detain illegal immigrants, how to identify family members, how to properly repatriate immigrants back to their homeland, and so forth. Here, the department of Homeland Security, and specifically, Immigration and Customs enforcement played a major role in this regard. Here, the department needs to adequately protect the border from illegal and unwarranted entry for foreign communities. It must do so in a manner that reflect the American ideals of freedom and justice, while also being mindful of the political elements of their actions. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade, and immigration. Because the issue of immigration has become such a politicized concept, ICE has a much more complicated position of implementing and adhering to this mandate (Ronald, ).

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement provides insights into how ICE has looked to initiative policies that are humane and respectful to the rights of illegal immigrants. The first significantly change occurred with the implementation of the Draft Language Access plan. This Language Access Plan sets forth the standards, principles, and guidelines through which ICE will provide and improve meaningful access to Agency programs and activities to external limited English proficient stakeholders. The ICE Office of Diversity and Civil Rights is responsible for coordinating, overseeing, and providing guidance to ICE program offices to ensure compliance with this plan and to assist in the overall improvement of language access services to external LEP stakeholders. This plan is particularly important as it first alleviates the critical communication burials which impeded progress of ICE agents during the apprehension process (Roger, 2002).

Proper communication is critical within the overall border patrol process. First, properly communication allows ICE agents to eliminate the language barrier that so often impeded progress in communication. This is essential as properly communication allows ICE agents to quickly process and repatriate immigrates who come to America illegally. Here, agents can quickly identify the individual, updates systems, call parents in the case of children, or even provide accommodations for them to return to their respective countries. When this is not in place, we have seen the horror’s that often take place. Without properly communication, children are often maintained in concentration camp like environments often unable to find or locate their parents. Lack of processing procedures does not allow ICE with enough time to quickly identify family of the original home of the immigrant. Due to these significant delays in processing and communication, many immigrants are left idle in conditions that are not reflective of the values of America. We recently witness this event first hand as caravans of illegal immigrants arrive at the U.S-Mexico border where they were properly apprehended and detained. Unfortunately, lack of properly communication, processing delays and lack of man power ultimately created a political firestorm in which many thousand of humans were stuck in cages and other inhumane circumstances. Further complicating the issue was COVID-19. As the caravans that approached the United States were so dense, many were forced to live, sleep, and eat within very close quarters. Thousands of illegal immigrants were therefore subjected to the COVID-19 virus, adding further political commentary on the part of the world news. Due to political pressure, the vice president of the United States along with her trusted aids were sent to mitigate the entire situation. Here, a lack of processing power, lack of communication, and the simply the sheer volume of illegal immigrants created an unwieldy circumstance with ICE.