“Either the background check isn’t actually “rigorous” or multiple instances of police misconduct aren’t considered disqualifying.“
Making matters much, much worse is the latest news. Andry Jose Hernandez Romero — the gay Venezuelan makeup artist the DHS shipped off to an El Salvador prison — was declared a gang member by the extremely dubious assertions of a Milwaukee, Wisconsin ex-cop who was such a terrible cop, he’s now reduced to working for private prison company, CoreCivic, which hired him only four months after he resigned rather than be fired by the PD.
A disgraced former Milwaukee cop with credibility issues helped seal the fate of a gay Venezuelan makeup artist sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison, according to documents reviewed by USA TODAY.
A report approved by the police-officer-turned-prison-contractor claimed the Venezuelan man was a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.
But the credibility of Charles Cross, Jr., who signed the report, was so bad, prosecutors flagged him on a list of police who had been accused of lying, breaking the law or acting in a way that erodes their credibility to testify in Milwaukee County.
Former officer Cross was fired from the Milwaukee PD in 2012 for crashing his car into his own home while intoxicated. At the time, Cross was also being investigated for overtime fraud and had already racked up enough misconduct charges that Milwaukee County prosecutors placed him on the “Brady List” — a list of all law enforcement officers the prosecutor’s office felt presented serious credibility issues.
That string of events ended Cross’s law enforcement career, but he’s managed to find a way to keep fucking people’s lives up while working within the confines of the private sector.
Today, Cross, 62, is one of the private prison contractors helping to identify Venezuelan migrants as members of the criminal outfit Tren de Aragua – a designation that’s landing them in a Salvadoran prison without due process.
Entrusting private contractors – and not federal agents – to determine whether migrants are members of a criminal gang adds a new level of apprehension, migrant advocates and a former ICE official said.
The documents obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show Cross made this determination. Whether or not he acted alone is still unknown. The DHS refuses to answer questions about this case, as does CoreCivic. The only other name on the report that turned Andry Romero into a gang member is Arturo Torres, another employee of CoreCivic.
The only statement offered by CoreCivic doesn’t make anyone involved in this deportation look any better. If anything, it makes everyone involved look like functioning cogs in a deliberately broken immigrant justice system.
Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesman, wouldn’t comment specifically on Cross’s case but said in a statement that all employees “clear a rigorous, federal background clearance process” and must be approved by ICE before being employed at an ICE-contracted facility.
Either the background check isn’t actually “rigorous” or multiple instances of police misconduct aren’t considered disqualifying. That goes for both CoreCivic and the agency that provides the final approval of new hires.
