Immigration Head Nominee -Credentials or Crony

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint Julie Myers as head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Myers, 36, is a lawyer with little or no experience in immigration & customs issues. Myers also happens to be the niece of Gen. Richard Myers - the guy you see on tv all the time with Don Rumsfeld, giving briefings about Iraq. Uh huh. She is also married to the chief of staff to Michael Chertoff, who is head of Homeland Security. Uh huh.

Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a huge & important agency. It is especially important now, since there have been growing calls for greater border protection & greater crack-down on the illegal invasion from the south. There are complex issues involved. Myers managed a department of 170 employees in the Commerce Dept. ICE has 20,000.

We do not need another FEMA embarrassment, where Bush crony & inexperienced Michael Brown was replaced after allegations he utterly failed to respond correctly to the Katrina hurricane disaster. Immigration is too important an issue to have its head not knowing an H-1 visa from a B-1 visa. We are sure there are plenty of qualified & thoroughly experienced managers out there who could be nominated to the position. But then, how many of them have a General for an uncle?