By Julia Preston | The New York Times
As administration officials begin to implement President Obama’s sweeping immigration actions, a federal lawsuit in Phoenix provides a rare look at the turmoil inside the agency in charge of new deportation policies and previews conflicts with field officers that the enforcement overhaul may provoke.
The suit was brought by Patricia M. Vroom, a lawyer who rose in a long career with the agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to become the top immigration prosecutor in Arizona. After she earned high performance ratings and frequent achievement awards, Ms. Vroom contends that her career nearly collapsed when she raised legal concerns about a policy of prosecutorial discretion she was ordered to apply to spare some immigrants from deportation.
