AMNESTY!

FOX News: A memo by John Morton, director of ICE, shows administration orders to release illegals already in the pipeline to be deported. The administration is clearly making an end-run around Congress and lawmakers because they know they couldn't get amnesty legislation passed. Time and time again, this administration shows there attitude is: When the law gets in your way, just ignore it!

UPDATE: Just two weeks ago, John Morton appeared on FOX's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, stating that there was absolutely no truth to the allegation that this administration was pro-amnesty.

VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, it's true that they passed a resolution, false that you're doing that.

MORTON: The charges are, one, that we're pro-amnesty and that we're anti-enforcement. Both of those are completely false. The president's against amnesty. The secretary's against amnesty. I'm against amnesty.

In fact he came on the show to tell about their new program to catch and deport illegal aliens who have committed crimes (well other than entering the country illegally.)

MORTON: Secure Communities is a new federal initiative that is literally going to transform immigration enforcement. And what we do is we take the fingerprints from every person who's booked into a jail, whether it's federal, state or local, and we run it against both the FBI's database and against the Department of Homeland Security's database to identify criminal offenders in our criminal justice system who aren't here lawfully and need to go home.

But now it's surfaced in an August 20th memo that ICE has been quietly telling courts to drop cases against illegal aliens who are pending removal. The policy change, it's said could "affect thousands of the estimated 17,000 pending removal cases."

Earlier this month, Morton planned a visit to Arizona. At the same time, the justice department peruses an aggressive case against the new Arizona immigration law and tries to bury Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona with demands for documentation. Arpaio, the sheriff who draws a hard line on illegal immigration and is nationally known for his tent city prison and pink prison uniforms, is being investigated for alleged civil rights violations. Other Arizona sheriffs called Morton's visit a "stunt." Morton traveled to the Arizona border, along with Arizona Democratic gubernatorial hopeful and state's Attorney General, Terry Goddard.