John Morton discusses his service as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from 2009 to 2013 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Morton focuses on his reform of immigration enforcement priorities, which he outlined in the so-called Morton Memos, and outlines adjustments to detention, deportation, and prosecutorial practices made during his directorship. Morton also describes the culture of ICE, and reflects on the difficulties associated with locating federal enforcement of both customs and immigration violations in a single agency. Morton provides details about the development of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) memorandum, the shift from worksite raids to audits of I-9 submissions, and his management of intergovernmental partnerships focused on local enforcement. Also discussed are the agency's enforcement of customs violations, intellectual property theft, human rights abuses including human trafficking and war crimes, and the politicization of immigration during the years of the Obama presidency
Presidents--United States; Detention of persons--Law and legislation--United States; Immigration enforcement--United States; Illegal immigration--Law and legislation--United States; Emigration and immigration--Law and legislation--United States; Deportation--United States; Noncitizen detention centers--United States; Human trafficking--United States; War crimes--United States; Morton, John Templeton, 1966-; Obama, Barack; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (U.S.)
Format
oral histories
Genre
Interviews
Date
2020
Physical Description
80 pages
Note (Biographical)
John Morton served as director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from 2009 to 2013. Prior to that, he served as a career official in the Department of Justice, prosecuting criminal cases and developing policy around immigration crime, human rights offenses, and international violent crime
Note
Interviewed by Nicole R. Hemmer on October 27 and November 4, 2020. This interview is part of the Columbia University: Obama Presidency Oral History
Note (Provenance)
John T. Morton, Gift, transferred from Columbia Center for Oral History Research 2022