President Barack Obama’s administration is bringing on a new “Principal Legal Advisor” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But she has no experience in immigration law.
“I’m very pleased to announce that Gwen Keyes Fleming has been selected to be the new Principal Legal Advisor for ICE,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) general counsel Stevan E. Bunnell wrote in a letter to ICE field offices obtained by Breitbart News. “She is scheduled to start on June 1st.”
Keyes Fleming is currently the chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and has a lengthy legal career.
“Gwen is a dynamic and accomplished senior government leader and manager, with experience at both the federal and state levels,” Bunnell wrote.
She is currently the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she works with the EPA Administrator and other senior agency officials to oversee the management of a federal agency with an $8 billion annual budget and more than 15,000 employees. She previously served as the presidentially appointed Regional Administrator for EPA Region 4 (based in Atlanta, Georgia), where she oversaw more than 1,000 employees across various operational and administrative divisions. Gwen also has extensive law enforcement and legal experience, having, among other things, served as the elected District Attorney and, before that, the elected Solicitor General in Decatur, Georgia. In total, Gwen has more than 17 years of experience as a law enforcement lawyer. She is smart, energetic, and has a track record of successfully adapting to new substantive and management challenges. I have no doubt that with her exceptional talents and energy, her law enforcement and legal experience, her fresh perspective, and her proven management skills, she will be an outstanding leader of OPLA and a key member of the OGC team.
But after reviewing both her publicly available LinkedIn page and her biography at the EPA, it’s clear that Keyes Fleming—who will now be leading ICE’s legal team when it comes to immigration law enforcement—has no official experience whatsoever in immigration law.
ICE press secretary Gillian Christensen confirmed that, but touted Keyes Fleming’s experience with other fields of law enforcement.
“As the second largest law enforcement agency in the federal government, charged not only with immigration enforcement but with enforcing more than 400 federal statutes involving everything from counter proliferation to child pornography, ICE’s legal team is made up of attorneys with experience in a wide variety of different law enforcement realms,” Christensen said in an emailed statement to Breitbart News on Wednesday.
“Gwen Keyes Fleming’s more than 17 years of experience as a law enforcement lawyer, makes her eminently qualified to act as ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor. In addition, she is well-suited to oversee the agency’s large legal team, given her previous extensive management experience, including her time as the EPA’s Chief of Staff, helping to guide an organization with more than 15,000 employees.”