Cronies Like Barr Threaten ICE Competence

The security threat beneath the resignation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s chief of staff Suzanne Barr goes far beyond allegations of her cultivation of a frat-house milieu brimming with salacious humor and sexual harassment of subordinates. Media sound bites, of course, draw attention to the latter. (See for example a popular version of the announcement of Barr’s resignation in the wake of a civil suit brought against DHS Secretary Napolitano in http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/suzanne-barr-top-obama-administration-official-quits-post-ice-chief-staff-sex-harassment-allegations-article-1.1149734 )

To uncover the real story that relates to how ICE management went about harming the organization from within, one must examine the civil complaint filed May 21, 2012 in the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia (available in many news stories and often tracing to early online availability via inveterate DHS critic D. Schlussel on her web site, www.DebbieSchlussel.com). The real story is about elevating phonies and cronies while simultaneously driving out ostensibly capable career managers.

Now anyone with modest experience of hierarchies and organizational life knows that there is an accepted way to reward one’s loyal myrmidons without needless bloodshed that enfeebles the organization. Barr’s ouster from ICE flies in the face of such traditions. It points at a fatal flaw in exposing ICE and perhaps DHS to serious reversals in whatever competence the institutions could claim in the past. The less eye-catching but no less deplorable underpinnings of the civil suit trace a pattern of abuse whereby two Napolitano cronies ostensibly ill-prepared for senior leadership positions were elevated into them with blatant disregard for a plaintiff. The latter, one James Hayes, was by all accounts competently discharging an executive role until Crony 1, Dora Schriro, was inserted into the organization as a “Special Advisor” to DHS Secretary Napolitano before gradually supplanting Hayes for no objectively supported justification.

A 15-year employee who worked his way up in the immigration and customs enforcement field, Hayes found himself marginalized and pressured to accept demotion or relocation to make room for Shriro. Approached by the senior in his chain of command, ICE Director John Morton, to negotiate his voluntary departure from the scene, Hayes agreed to take a reassignment back to a field office from which he came, asking for the kind of relocation assistance that would keep him whole, since he had moved to Washington D.C. relatively recently to accept his last promotion. Morton apparently began by agreeing to work with Hayes to this end but ultimately turned on him. What followed were a series of unprofessional actions against Hayes, ranging from pushing him out of business meetings to make way for Shriro to imposing financial hardship by forcing an out-of-town transfer without financial assistance. This caused substantial financial hardship for Hayes, who had to sell his home at a loss. Meanwhile, as he tried to appeal such actions within the system, he evidently encountered threats to be transferred farther still and had several punitive investigations opened or reopened against him, apparently as a way of dissuading him from pursuing his grievances more formally. In the end, all these investigations closed without finding Hayes culpable of any of the alleged misdeeds. Some of the investigations had already been closed out or rejected previously, but they were reopened and reinvestigated again, thus apparently supporting Hayes’ claim that these were retaliatory rather than substantive.

Here is where Suzanne Barr comes into the fray. She was Crony 2. Like Crony 1, Barr’s principal qualification for a senior position in ICE appeared to be previous work for Janet Napolitano when the latter was a politician in Arizona. Crony 2 was junior to Crony 1, so why is Crony 2 resigning under pressure? As it happens, Crony 1 is already gone from ICE and DHS. New York’s current mayor found her a sinecure. So, Crony 2 was still in place to absorb the heat. More importantly, though, acts of blatant professional misconduct trace more indelibly to Crony 2 than to Crony 1. You see, Crony 2 was the one who threatened to transfer Hayes to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from D.C. if he did not stop making a fuss. She was also overheard probing for ways to force him out of the organization. Consequently, in addition to her callow high jinks involving bawdy humor, sexual innuendo, and puerile bully tactics targeting male subordinates, Ms. Barr, Crony 2, is identifiable in taking a hand in a number of ethically challenged maneuvers calculated at forcing an otherwise competent civil servant out of office. Meanwhile another patron, ICE Director Morton created two senior-level positions to fill with his own cronies while denying Hayes such a position for a lateral move. Morton also gave these cronies generous relocation bonuses at the same time that he was denying Hayes’s requests for cost reimbursements to offset the costs of his own forced relocation.

The Security Ramifications

As wasteful as a traditional spoils system may be, at least it generally stops short of stripping the organization of its competence. By keeping credentialed talent whole and on board, even if sidelined, one at least retains the capacity to call such talent to action when the hour sounds. By contrast, ham-handedly forcing out such talent to make room for inexperienced, bullying cronies inflicts double harm. If there is an emergency, the organization will falter because it has neutered itself by gutting its talent pool. At the same time, with the career catapulting of callow crony corporals over credentialed captains, the organization tells its employees that it holds high positions in relative disregard. Otherwise, competence would not count so little when qualifying for high office. Thus, in the long run, patronage becomes the sole path to advancement.

Is this unique to Secretary Napolitano? Hardly. One may argue that Rudy Giuliani succumbed to the same weakness in promoting as a candidate for Napolitano’s job Bernard Kerik, whose main if not only credential traced to having a history of working for America’s mayor. (A colleague who once spent time in a combat zone to assist with teaching American policing to interested Iraqis recalled how Kerik, on a similar assignment, was disinclined to leave his limousine or quarters, and was just going through the motions of foreign assistance for whatever resume value this brought. But perhaps there is more to the story.) Similarly, in the private sector, one need look no further than to Jack Welch to wonder whether his hand-picked successor, Jeffrey Immelt, ever approximated or will even approach the competence of his patron.

All that the Shriro, Kerik, Immelt, and Barr examples repeatedly establish is that hand-picked henchmen and sycophants seldom deliver the same value as their more powerful patrons. Indeed, if there is anything these beneficiaries of patronage do consistently, it is to let down the people and institutions promoting them.

As the French intone, plus ça change plus c'est la même chose.

-- Nick Catrantzos