A federal employee’s promotion following allegations she obstructed an investigation into the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, confirmed in a recently released report by the Office of Inspector General, has left experts with mixed reactions.
Irene Martin, former San Bernardino field office director for U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, was transferred to the Los Angeles field office and promoted to acting deputy district director following the Dec. 3 incident at the USCIS field office in San Bernardino, less than three miles from the Inland Regional Center, where the day before 14 people were killed and 22 others wounded in what the FBI declared the deadliest terrorist strike on U.S. soil since 9/11.
The incident at the USCIS San Bernardino field office triggered so much ire it prompted a hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in March, followed by the OIG investigation that concluded on April 8.
Martin declined to comment, according to USCIS spokeswoman Maria Elena Upson.
Inspector General John Roth released a scathing 9-page report on June 1 detailing the findings from the investigation.
The report concluded that Martin, security guards for the Federal Protective Service, and other top USCIS officials hindered the Homeland Security investigation by not allowing five armed federal agents full and immediate access to the center to look for suspect Enrique Marquez Jr., which could have resulted in “disastrous consequences” had Marquez been planning an attack there.
Instead, Martin made the Homeland Security agents wait more than hour in the lobby while she went up the chain of command trying to get authorization for them to search the building.
Marquez was indicted less than a month later for providing the assault rifles used in the IRC massacre to shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik. The Redlands couple was killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack.
USCIS spokesman Jeff Carter said Martin’s transfer and promotion occurred before the release of the OIG report.
Martin, according to her Linked-In social media page, has worked for immigration for 16 years, beginning in 2000 when the department was the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. She was the field office director for San Bernardino’s USCIS field office from March 2003 until her recent transfer to Los Angeles.
Experts had mixed reactions to Martin’s promotion.
“I’m speechless,” said Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor at Cal State San Bernardino and an expert in counterterrorism. “Maybe if (Martin) messed up just a little bit more maybe she could have been director.”
Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School and former federal prosecutor, said she, too, was surprised to hear of Martin’s promotion, but not so much if it was announced before the Dec. 3 incident.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s permanent,” Levenson said. “It can be reevaluated, it may still have consequences and it may be a short-lived position.”
Still, Levin was stumped as to why USCIS made any change at all to Martin’s employment status given the circumstances.
“At the very least, any personnel change should have been frozen until the results of the (Inspector General’s) investigation,” Levin said.
Acting on a tip that Enrique Marquez Jr. may be at the USCIS San Bernardino field office with his Russian national wife, Mariya Chernykh, the federal agents arrived at the office about 12:20 p.m.
Greeted by the FPS guards, the armed agents told the guards who they were, who they were looking for and that it was an urgent matter related to the terrorist attack the day prior, according to the OIG report.
The guards told the federal agents they had to stay in the lobby until Martin approved their entry. When Martin did not answer her phone, one of the guards searched the building, found Martin and told her Homeland Security agents were in the lobby, and that it was related to the terrorist attack the day prior.
Martin instructed the guard to bring the agents into a conference room, where they finally got to talk to Martin after waiting 30 minutes. They told her they were looking for Marquez, that he may be connected to the shootings and there was concern he could be in the building, according to the report.
Martin then told the agents that, per USCIS policy, they were not allowed to arrest, detain or interview anyone in the building. She then called a supervisor at the Los Angeles field office, who told the agents the same thing, according to the report, which noted that no such policy exists.
“Contrary to the field office director’s statement to agents at the time, and to OIG during her interview, there is no ‘safe harbor’ against arrest at USCIS or any other federal facility,” according to the report.
During her interview with OIG investigators, Martin denied having ever made such a statement. She also told them she was never informed as to the specific purpose of the ICE agents’ visit, according to the report.
While trying to get authorization to allow the agents to search the building, Martin left the agents waiting in the lobby another 30 minutes. She called the USCIS district director in Los Angeles, who then called the regional director in Laguna Niguel, who then called the associate director of field operations in Washington, D.C., who then met with USCIS counsel, according to the report.
Meanwhile, office staff determined Chernykh never arrived for her appointment, and neither she nor Marquez were at the office.
So, the agents asked to see Chernykh’s file, which Martin refused to provide. She only showed them a photo. When the agents asked for Chernykh’s address and other known addresses, Martin would only confirm the addresses the agents provided her, according to the report.
Finally, the associate director of field operations in Washington gave authorization to release Chernykh’s file to the agents, who had to copy information from the file in long-hand, according to the report.
In the end, USCIS failed at every level, creating a bureaucratic mess of epic proportion that could have jeopardized public safety.
The OIG determined ICE agents should have been provided immediate and full access to the San Bernardino field office, as well as any and all information they requested given the emergency situation. The report listed all the federal codes, sections and policies supporting that conclusion, which Martin and the other key players seemed to lack knowledge of during the Dec. 3 debacle.
“It should be made clear that USCIS has no authority to prohibit legitimate law enforcement operations and that in fast-developing or emergency situations, federal law enforcement must have the latitude … to operate as they see fit,” Roth wrote in the report.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron issued a statement following the release of the report, stating that “ICE and USCIS have since improved their protocols for facility access and information sharing in circumstances with potential national security or public safety implications in order to avoid any such delays in the future.”
The Federal Protective Service is also clarifying with its employees, facility security committees, and protective security officers the agency’s policy of allowing law enforcement partners access to federal facilities during emergency situations, the statement said.
Levin said what happened at the USCIS San Bernardino field office was not only bizarre, but scary considering all the involved agencies are under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella and that it has been nearly 15 years since 9/11.
“A recurring issue that the government has grappled with since 9/11 is the integration and coordination of the operations of far-flung or autonomous agencies following a terrorist attack or other exigent situations,” said Levin. “One of the primary reasons that DHS was created in the first place was to avoid these coordination failures.”
Levenson, the Loyola criminal law professor, said she was not surprised by what occurred.
“Some people hope that our government is a well-oiled machine, but the truth is we often miscommunicate,” Levenson said. “It is also true that agents become very territorial about their authority, and that’s too bad because these are important situations. You want people to put aside petty differences and work together.”
She said she hopes the government will see this as a learning opportunity so authorities can coordinate better going forward.
“It doesn’t surprise me that even though we’re 15 years out since 9/11 we haven’t figured this out because, thankfully, we haven’t had to do this a lot,” Levenson said.
