"The union that represents 8,000 ICE employees wants the Department of Homeland Security to investigate complaints alleging discrimination and harassment of ICE female employees in the agency's El Paso division.

Three recent cases involved ICE officers who were pregnant, said Chris Crane, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFL-CIO), National Council 118-ICE."

But that's not all that the recent article in the El Paso Times reports...  This is a much deeper, darker story.  We've got management and OPR trying to intimidate employees and union reps, and managers with experience in burying media issues being moved across the country after the union staged a successful informational picket in front of the El Paso Field Office.

"Union officers said Rick Diaz, the union's representative for ICE employees in El Paso, was harassed when he tried to help the employees with their complaints.

"Diaz was placed under a false and retaliatory investigation by ICE managers and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility," Crane said. "They placed him in a criminal interrogation room with a one-way mirror, and refused his request to have his union representative present. ICE officials asked him about other union members, and he felt so threatened he had to call the police."

Police took down an informational report on April 8 from Diaz, who alleged a terroristic threat at the ICE offices on the West Side."

And now the agency may be positioning management members that have experience in trying to make media issues go away:

"ICE higher-ups in Washington, D.C., recently sent ICE official Scott Weber to El Paso to speak to ICE management about the complaints.

Although ICE made it clear his visit was not investigative, Crane said the union objected to Weber's having a role in the El Paso complaints.

"We believe he may be called upon to help cover up what's going on in El Paso," he said.

Crane said the union is skeptical because Weber was director of the ICE Newark, N.J., field office when he recommended that ICE pay to send the body of a man who died in ICE custody back to his native Guinea for burial to avoid publicity.

The reasons Weber gave in a 2007 ICE memo for his recommendation were "to prevent his widow from showing up in the United States for a funeral and drawing news coverage É (and) I also don't want to stir up any media interest where none is warranted.""