Jeff Sessions Weighs In on ICE vs. Rubio: Chris Crane Is an American Hero

On Friday Breitbart News published an exclusive interview with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council President Chris Crane. In the interview, Crane details how “law enforcement was treated like absolute trash” by Sen. Marco Rubio and the Gang of Eight, who “saw law enforcement as the enemy.”

Crane, who is himself an ICE officer of 13 years, was also a U.S. Marine and is a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as well as a lifetime member of the the American Legion.

In response to Crane’s interview, Marco Rubio appeared on Fox News and denounced Crane and his service to his country. “He’s not an ICE official. He’s the head of a union,” Rubio declared. “That individual is not an ICE official; he’s the head of a union,” Rubio said, repeating himself later in the interview.

Senator Jeff Sessions– who led the opposition to Rubio’s Obama-backed 2013 amnesty bill– weighed in on the matter this afternoon. An advanced copy of Sessions’ response was provided to Breitbart News:

Chris Crane is an honest man of integrity who has served his country for many years as a United States Marine and as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. He is an American hero who was chosen by nearly 6,000 ICE officers, agents and employees to head their union and speak to the nation on their behalf. He courageously spoke up to expose the administration’s political manipulation of ICE officers, providing all of us an early warning of the administration’s near total non-enforcement of immigration laws, years before it was widely known.  When the Gang of 8 and President Obama were drafting their immigration bill, he asked to be allowed to participate and provide input. In fact, House Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte and I personally requested that President Obama meet with the ICE union, but he never did.  The White House and the Gang of Eight refused to listen to Chris and his officers because the truth is they never wanted their professional advice.  The bill was designed to benefit the powerful special interests who guided its creation from the beginning — it was not designed to benefit the national interest, nor the interests of our nation’s law enforcement officers.  Chris Crane exposed the fatal weaknesses of that bill and played a major role in stopping what would have been a disaster for the country.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Crane wrote a letter pleading with Marco Rubio to delay introduction of the Gang of Eight bill until ICE officers’ input could be included in the legislation, yet Rubio ignored the letter and introduced the bill regardless.

Others, however, had an inside track with the Gang of Eight.  As the Washington Post reported, the White House had a staffer who regularly attended the Gang of Eight meetings and even set up, according to the New York Times, a “covert immigration war room” inside the Senate to help push the bill.

Further, as CNN reported, Rubio’s top immigration lawyer was allegedly able to get special deals for his corporate Florida clients included in the legislation as well — even as America’s ICE officers were ‘handcuffed’ by the legislation.

What’s particularly odd about Rubio’s line of attack against ICE Officer Chris Crane — that he’s a member of a union — is that it is only because Crane is both an officer and a union official that he is able to speak out about these matters without being terminated. If Crane did not have status in the union, his decision to speak out against Senator Rubio could easily result in his termination. Moreover, the ICE union’s decision to put the country’s security first — rather than being team players inside the administration — has caused them to be snubbed by their own umbrella union of government workers in the AFL-CIO.