After revealing in a Senate committee hearing that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services agents prevented authorities from entering a branch office to potentially detain a terror suspect, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., is asking Homeland Security officials not to punish the people who told him the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnson, in a March 16 letter to Secretary for Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, said he would not tolerate “any effort to retaliate against federal employees” who had communicated with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs or members of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a Senate Committee hearing on March 15, Johnson questioned USCIS director Le\u00f3n Rodr\u00edguez and U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement director Sarah Salda\u00f1a about why Homeland Security Investigations agents were prevented from entering a USCIS office to detain a suspect in the San Bernardino terror attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The senator said that following the hearing, his staff had learned that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials were actively trying to discover who had talked to the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am concerned that ICE is attempting to identify and retaliate against whistleblowers who revealed a lack of cooperation between USCIS and ICE in the aftermath of the terror attacks in San Bernardino,” the senator said in his letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“ICE has a track record of retaliating against whistleblowers as in the case of HSI agent Taylor Johnson. Those who have the courage to come forward should not be retaliated against.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspect, Enrique Marquez, purchased weapons used in the attack that killed 14 and had an immigration hearing on Dec. 3, a day after the shootings, but didn’t show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnson said in the hearing that HSI were called to the USCIS office, but were prevented from entering. Rodr\u00edguez said that the agents weren’t stopped, but were delayed while a USCIS agent confirmed the proper protocols with agency superiors. Marquez was later arrested on Dec. 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Wisconsin senator also sent a letter to DHS inspector general John Roth asking for an investigation into the Dec. 3 incident, as well as protections for any DHS employees who may have notified Congress about the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After revealing agents were prevented from pursuing a terror suspect, the senator wants to protect whistleblowers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":9,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2714],"class_list":["post-21324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QGNOAQZOQBADRN6QTMHASBKSHY","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/2016\/03\/17\/johnson-asks-dhs-not-to-punish-whistleblowers\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n