Join TendingBar for Part 1 of an eye-opening and energizing conversation with Peter Vincent, General Counsel to ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) during the Obama administration, one of America’s chief experts on criminal enterprise and terrorist organizations operating in Mexico and Central America!
In Part 1 of Peter Vincent’s interview with TendingBar, he recounts his role in apprehending one of history’s most notorious narco-traffickers, El Chapo Guzman. He also shares his thoughts on public policy related to immigration across American’s Southern Border, and he opines on current events.
Our interview of Peter Vincent occurred just days before the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle DACA. Presciently, during our conversation Peter predicted that the Supreme Court would let DACA stand (and it did).
Part 1: Key Topics
6:12: Helping Colombia from falling into a narco-state-type dynamic
8:19: Tracking down ultra narco-trafficker, El Chapo
14:10: “Tacos, tequila and chicas”
18:29: Made in Hollywood, tracking El Chapo through Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo
21:55: A narco-trafficking game of “Whack-a-Mole”
28:26: Thoughts on today’s political environment
31:47: Why the Law, Peter? / Thoughts on lawyers as public servants…
In Part 2 of Peter’s interview, we discuss controversial immigration policy issues like Jeff Sessions’ “zero tolerance” policy and the separation of immigrant children from their families within U.S. detention facilities at the Southern border. Peter speaks candidly about challenges to immigration policy, and about the thought that went into creation of the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program (DACA) – a program for which Peter was among the principal architects .
More about Peter Vincent
Peter Vincent has been serving the American people in various law enforcement and diplomatic roles for decades. You may know him as the man in charge of the U.S. task force that worked with Mexican authorities to capture infamous narco-trafficker “El Chapo.” But Peter’s career has been far-ranging, and his insights are important.
As a judicial attache for the U.S. Department of Justice in Bogota, Colombia, Peter became one of America’s chief experts on criminal enterprise and terrorist organizations operating in Mexico and Central America. Even before becoming a lawyer, he had developed an appreciation and love for the people and culture of Central America, while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in war-torn Guatemala.
Peter brought his cultural understanding and his law enforcement expertise to the Department of Homeland Security, where he became the top lawyer in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, overseeing more than 1000 attorneys charged with enforcing American immigration policy during the Obama administration.
During his tenure at ICE, the United States witnessed large groups of migrants fleeing terrible violence in Central America’s “Northern Triangle” region, which encompasses Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Faced with large inflows of undocumented immigrants and overwhelming backlogs in the immigration courts, under Peter’s leadership ICE implemented processes that prioritized cases related to threats to public safety (e.g., alleged drug traffickers) over cases that posed no safety threats, like families seeking asylum. Amazingly, such prioritization had not previously been the practice within ICE, and Peter’s team reduced backlog from more than 1,000,000 cases to ~350,000.
After President Obama’s top legislative priority (the Affordable Care Act) had become law, he turned attention to immigration reform, but met immovable opposition from Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Following the philosophy of prioritization that ICE had already begun implementing, Peter and a small team within the administration developed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which viewed young, undocumented immigrants who had grown up in the U.S.A. as members of the community, not as threats. Because those young people were, in Peter’s words, “for all intents and purposes American,” DACA gave temporary protected status to some immigrants so that ICE could prioritize cases that needed sooner attention.
Indeed, prioritization of immigration court caseloads led to record levels of deportations during the Obama years, leading to Obama’s nickname as the “Deporter in Chief.” In his role as the top attorney for ICE, Peter oversaw both the heightened level of law enforcement and the simultaneous protection of DACA recipients.
Be sure to look for Part 2 of TendingBar’s interview with Peter Vincent, coming soon.