Gonzalez’s ICE withdrawal shows cost of deadlock
If Monday’s discovery of 51 migrants dead in the back of an 18-wheeler represented the worst kind of immigration tragedy imaginable, news from Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez the same day offered a disappointing sidebar. Gonzalez confirmed Monday afternoon he is withdrawing from consideration as head of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, some 14 months after President Joe Biden nominated him.
His withdrawal marks a failure to have the nomination confirmed in the Senate, and a setback for any who have been calling for a more humane, rational approach to immigration enforcement.
Gonzalez, still reeling from the San Antonio tragedy, told us Tuesday that border enforcement badly needs an update.
“We do not need to check our humanity at the border,” Gonzalez told the editorial board.
The suffering in San Antonio is just the latest reminder of how right he is, and how important it was for Biden to succeed in finding 50 votes for him to secure the Senate confirmation of Gonzalez as head of ICE. Gonzalez could’ve offered a badly needed voice to shift the conversation around immigration but the same partisan entrenchment that blocks progress at the border also blocked him.
“We all know that the immigration system is broken,” Gonzalez said.
Republicans weren’t happy with the sheriff ’s history with ICE. He ended an ICE partnership begun under President Donald Trump, one that some saw as an opportunity for further training for local officers, but Gonzalez rightly viewed as an unhelpful distraction and a bid to recruit local officers’ help enforcing federal immigration laws.
That should have been a point in his favor, but wasn’t. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, expressed early concern about his ending the ICE partnership, a sign of the drawn-out confirmation process to come.
Another cause for delay was an unsubstantiated allegation of prior domestic abuse. A Republican senator from Oklahoma released an affidavit from a former Houston Community College police officer saying he had been called to interview Gonzalez’s wife, Melissa, about domestic violence. But a bipartisan review showed details in the affidavit were false and both Gonzalez and his wife denied the incident. At the time, the White House stood by his nomination.
What role that report played in derailing his confirmation isn’t clear, but as the months passed and no subsequent vote was scheduled, Gonzalez finally decided it was time to throw in the towel. “It has taken far too long,” he said in withdrawing from consideration.
Harris County is fortunate to have its sheriff ’s full attention back. But more broadly, his failed nomination is one more misstep on the part of a president who has not yet kept his promise of a more humane immigration system. And beyond Biden’s efforts, it speaks to a deadlock on finding a path forward on the border. There hasn’t been a Senate-confirmed head of ICE since President Barack Obama left office.
Comprehensive immigration reform, so obviously needed, is no closer now than when a bipartisan group of eight senators tried and failed to achieve it in 2013, or when six tried and failed on a smaller plan in 2018.
“The border itself just sucks the air out of the room,” said Gonzalez, obscuring the challenges of asylum case backlogs and representation for unaccompanied children, not to mention the trade across the country that states rely on.
Unfortunately, his withdrawal puts Biden back at square one. We hope he finds someone as qualified as Gonzalez, but we’re not holding our breath.
We are disappointed by the show of political gridlock that increasingly looks like a desire for chaos. We are devastated by its costs.