ALL COUNTIES — U.S. CONGRESSMAN DAVID PRICE RESPONDS TO JIM PENDERGRAPH'S ACCUSATIONS
Shortly after the posting of NC WANTED's July 24th story, "ICE Executive Warns of Price Agenda," David Price's office called NC WANTED to establish a time to conduct a phone interview with Congressman Price from his office in Washington, D.C.
At 5:30p.m. on Thursday, July 24th, 2008, David Price joined a conference call with three NC WANTED staff members. The phone interview lasted approximately 45 minutes. Listen to the audio highlights of that interview by clicking the .mp3 links in the gray sidebar next to this article.
Just before the phone interview with David Price began, his office emailed a document containing a point-by-point response to the NC WANTED story about Jim Pendergraph. View the Price response document in the gray sidebar next to this article.
Also on the afternoon of July 24th, ICE emailed an official message to FOX 50 managment explaining that although Jim Pendergraph is an executive on staff with ICE., the views he expressed in the NC WANTED story were his own, and not those of ICE. View the ICE email document in the gray sidebar next to this article.
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Price: Claims are “Fallacious”
Rep. David Price responded to claims yesterday made by Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement supervisor, in an exclusive interview with NC WANTED.
Price called Pendergraph’s assertions that a House spending panel was inadequately funding ICE programs “fallacious” and challenged the credibility of the claims.
ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel supported Price in a statement to NC WANTED.
“ICE has worked very closely with Chairman Price on a number of public safety issues and we value the constructive relationship we have with him. Even in areas where we have previously differed in opinion, Chairman Price has been open to our views and we have been able to reach a satisfactory outcome,” the statement read.
The statement also alleged that Pendergraph had not been involved in discussions about ICE’s funding and that the views he expressed were personal and did not reflect the views of the agency.
“Contrary to his interview, there is nothing in the current ICE appropriations bill that would prohibit ICE from investigating gang activity, pornography importation, human smuggling, or drug trafficking,” the statement read.
In a June article in the News and Observer, Price questioned the priorities of ICE’s implementation of 287(g), a program named for a paragraph in the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local and state law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE to gain access to federal resources in the fight against crime.
He specifically called for greater emphasis on the deportation of criminal aliens rather than worksite raids. The 2009 appropriation still includes the $90 million for worksite enforcement, but the additional $2.3 million ICE requested was reallocated to the deportation of criminal aliens.
Price defended his statements to the News and Observer Thursday. “We’re giving priority to criminal aliens – people who have been convicted of serious crimes – who otherwise would be turned back out on the streets. We are not prohibiting, and the bill is quite explicit about this… we are not prohibiting ICE’s other activities,” he said.
In an exclusive interview with NC WANTED, Pendergraph expressed frustration about a proposed budget bill that he said will affect ICE’s ability to adequately enforce immigration law. He lamented that Congress has asked for a shift in priorities toward deporting criminal aliens rather than emphasizing worksite enforcement, where he said identity theft and fraud run rampant.
“Congressman David Price had introduced legislation, his budget bill, and it is trying to affect our ability to do our job because even though the law is there and we need to enforce it, if we don’t have the funding to do it, we’re out of luck,” he said.
Price defended the budget bill, which he said allocates $39.7 million for the 287(g) program and has grown 700 percent in the last 3 years to meet ICE’s growing funding demands.
In fiscal year 2008, however, ICE received the exact same appropriation although the program has grown.
Price defended the lack of growth in funding by alleging that 287(g) was overfunded in 2008. Furthermore, he said, ICE will be fully equipped to “fund all 95 pending agreements, assuming the agreements are approved.”
In addition, “it (the 2009 budget bill) would pay for 31 more requests that might be submitted, that haven’t been submitted yet. So there’s no lack of funding, there’s no holdup in this program, that is simply fallacious,” Price said.
Price also pointed out that the budget goes well beyond the funding that was requested by President Bush.
