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Sunday, February 19, 2012

California shooting latest woe for immigration agency

Published February 18, 2012
Associated Press 
The deadly office shooting in California involving a federal immigrations supervisor and a special agent is the latest mark against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the law enforcement agency created after the 2001 terror attacks.
Its officers and agents have themselves been arrested for crimes, accused of improper relationships with informants, convicted in embezzlement cases, and more.
Insiders said ICE, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, struggles to overcome internal friction and competing cultures among employees who worked at the different federal agencies that were combined nine years ago to form ICE: the former Customs Service in the Treasury Department and the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"It was more like a hostile takeover and Customs clearly had the upper hand," said T.J. Bonner, a retired Border Patrol agent who has worked with ICE. He described the agency's formation as "an unfriendly merger."
Investigators were piecing together details of Thursday's chaotic scene at the ICE office in Long Beach. They said a supervisory agent, Ezequiel Garcia, shot Kevin Kozak, the agency's second in command, at least six times. Another agent, whose name was being withheld, fatally shot Garcia.
A federal official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Kozak had denied a request for an internal transfer by Garcia. Kozak formerly worked at the Customs Service; Garcia worked for the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and was promoted in 2004 to be a supervisor within ICE.

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