Latest Moves
July 2020: Albence Announced He Was Leaving His Position At ICE. “Matt Albence, the acting director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will leave his post by Labor Day, the Washington Examiner was first to report Thursday. Albence informed senior ICE officials in a private phone call Thursday evening that he plans to retire after serving a year in his position.” [Washington Examiner, 7/30/20]
November 2020: Albence Announced He Was Launching Consulting Firm Specializing In “Tailored And Effective Guidance…To Deliver Bureaucratic Navigational Services.” “Prominent national and homeland security executive Matt Albence has launched GrindStone Strategic Consulting, LLC, a boutique firm. Specializing in tailored and effective guidance and subject-matter expertise, GrindStone will assist companies in addressing critical operational and organizational challenges and deliver bureaucratic navigational services. Albence’s almost three decades of national security, public safety, investigative, trade/commerce and immigration experience offer a unique and proven track record of executive leadership and analytic capability. “Public-private partnerships are essential to the critical missions of the federal government,” said Albence. “I’m excited to continue to serve the public in this role while helping clients develop innovative solutions to achieve their goals.”” [Homeland Security Today, 11/12/20]
Recent News
Headline: Newsweek: “ICE Director Says Immigrant Parents ‘Ultimately the Ones That Are Responsible’ for Being Separated From Their Children.” [Newsweek, 8/13/19]
Headline: CNN: “Top immigration official says family detention centers are ‘like summer camp.’” [CNN, 8/1/18]
Albence Described Family Detention Centers As “Like Summer Camp.” “A top immigration official on Tuesday said family detention centers are ‘more like summer camp’ than a jail during a congressional hearing on the administration’s efforts to reunite thousands of immigrant families separated as a result of its zero-tolerance immigration policy. Asked at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to describe the so-called family residential centers where kids and parents are held, Matthew Albence, the head of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comparison of the detention centers to a summer camp.” [CNN, 8/1/18]
Albence Later Said He “Absolutely” Stood By His Comment, Declined to Say Whether He Would Send His Children There. “Matthew Albence, who serves as ICE’s acting deputy director and oversees the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit, said he ‘absolutely’ stood by the comparison but declined to say whether he would be willing to send his own children to a family detention center.” [Newsweek, 9/19/18]
Albence Clashed With Senate Judiciary Committee On Whether Deported Parents Consented To Leave Children Behind. “[Sen. Dick] Durbin, the second-highest ranking Senate Democrat, pressed Albence repeatedly on whether ICE could demonstrate that its officers consistently asked parents whether they wished to be deported with their children. But rather than address how much documentation can be found, Albence replied that ‘it has been long-standing ICE policy’ to give parents the option to be deported with their children… Durbin again asked Albence whether he could produce documentary proof that all deported parents who left without their children consented to leave those children behind. ‘We can go into each file and see the records that are there, whatever paper records are in there, as well as what’s in our electronic system of records, where they will make notes,’ Albence said. ‘The officers will make a note that the parent declined reunification, as well.’” [POLITICO, 7/31/18]
