Department+of+Justice

Department of Justice Attorney General: Eric Holder

Mission Statement To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

 Total Budget for 2009 –$16 billion  $8 billion for the FBI $145 million for the Civil Rights Division $6 billion for the Bureau of Prisons $1.4 billion for the Office of the Detention Trustee $109 million for prisoner reentry programs $75 million for the Office of Justice Programs __First 100 Days Progress Report: Department of Justice __ During the first 100 days of the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice has taken it upon themselves to protect our national security vigilantly and consistently with the rule of law. They have reinvigorated the Department’s traditional missions, such as fighting crime, safeguarding the civil rights of all Americans, preserving our environment, protecting our public institutions from corruption, and ensuring fairness in the marketplace and have recommitted the Department to its vital traditions of independence, non-partisanship, transparency, and fealty to the law. http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/progress-report.htm

Issue I: Human Trafficking

Around 600,000 to 800,000 people, mainly women and children, are trafficked across national borders. That does not count millions trafficked inside their own countries. Recent cases of trafficking inside the United States was the trafficking of adolescent Mexican girls who were forced into prostitution, Indian men forced into labor, and African women and children forced into domestic servitude. The United States passed legislation so that any American that sexually preys on children abroad may be prosecuted and sentenced to the max of 30 years in prison. The Department of Justice is spending a large amount of time focusing on increasing the number of victims rescued and the number of prosecutions and of the traffickers.

Houston Man Sentenced for Human Trafficking and Alien Smuggling Charges Maximino Mondragon was sentenced to 156 months incarceration, and pay $1,715,588.05 in restitution to the victims he smuggled in from Central America and forced them to work in the Houston area. Mondragon is the last of 8 defendants convicted and sentenced with the connection to the scheme. He plead guilty to violations of conspiracy to hold persons in a condition of indentured servitude and to illegally and knowingly recruiting, harboring, transporting persons for labor and services, and conspiracy to bring, harbor, and transport known illegal aliens for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain. He lured the women to the US with promises of a good life and good jobs, but once in the country they were forced to work in bars and cantinas.

HORROR OF TEEN SEX SLAVERY When Theresa Flores was 15 she was forced to have sex with many strangers. "I can't describe to you the feeling of terror. No child should ever have to know that kind of fear. I didn't know what I was going to have to endure that night, for how long, or if I was going to come back home." Flores now speaks out against human trafficking at many conventions and conferences. She has used her tragic ordeal to enlighten the public about the horror that the victims of trafficking face. She tells people not to turn the other way when it is happening, and that it doesn't just happen to poverty stricken countries. She was forced into a trafficking in a suburban neighborhood in Ohio.   RECOMMENDATION: Increase number of Department of Justice agents dedicated to the safe return of trafficking victims.

 

 Current Issue II: Domestic Terrorism Domestic Terrorism is easily under looked, due to everyone’s concern after the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, the threat of homegrown terrorists is very real, and they range from violent anti abortion supporters, to eco-terrorists who attack buildings and property trying to defend the environment. Many people easily stereotype a terrorist as a middle eastern man with a turban, but some of the more dangerous threats come from within our own country. While the increase in national terrorism awareness is a good thing, we cannot forget that there are extremists in our own country that need to be taken care of.

Since 9/11 there has been several cases of domestic terrorism. In Tennessee, the FBI arrested a man who agents say hated the federal government and was attempting to acquire chemical weapons and explosives to blow up a government building. The man pleaded not guilty Nov. 5. His attorney did not return calls when asked to defend him. In May a man in Texas was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison after he stockpiled enough sodium cyanide to kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot building. The man was described by federal prosecutors as a white supremacist who had nine machine guns, 67 sticks of explosives and more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition. Investigators and the federal prosecutor said they didn't know what the man intended to do with the potentially deadly chemicals. Last month in Utah, two men described by the U.S. attorney there as "domestic terrorists" pleaded guilty to setting separate arson fires related to eco-terrorism. The first admitted starting a fire that caused $1.5 million damage at a West Jordan lumber company and spray-painting "ELF" at the site. The Earth Liberation Front has been connected to dozens of acts of vandalism and arson around the country since 1996. The other pleaded guilty to starting a fire at Brigham Young University's Ellsworth Farm, where animal experiments are conducted, in the name of the Animal Liberation Front.

Many extremists do not act alone. Many of them actually start and lead organizations that try to either bring the government down, or try to spread awareness of false information. One incident includes the organization of followers who believed that the United States government was building secret concentration camps and was going to create a new world order with the help of the United Nations. They were also trying to start a very large militia and create a violent resistance to the government. They also believed that the ‘mysterious black helicopters' were part of government surveillance and the take over was immanent. 

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; font-size: 110%; color: rgb(128, 0, 0); text-align: center; display: block;"> RECOMMENDATION: To prevent domestic terrorism, become involved in your communities awareness for it. Learn how to spot and point out the radical extremists who try to bring the government down. Create an organization in your community that tries to prevent and keep the citizens aware. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128); background-color: rgb(0, 0, 128); text-align: center; display: block;">

<span style="font-size: 110%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; background-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); text-align: center; display: block;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(230, 112, 230); background-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); text-align: center; display: block; font-size: 120%;">History of the Department of Justice The Department of Justice started out as a one-person, part-time job, where the attorney general gave legal advice to the U.S Congress and the President. On February 19th 1868, they introduced a bill in Congress to create the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice officially began operations on July 1, 1870.