Sarah Ruth Saldana is an American attorney who served as the fourth director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from December 23, 2014, until January 20, 2017, under President Barack Obama. She was the first Latina and the second woman (after Julie Myers) to hold the position of ICE director. Previously she had served as Assistant U.S. Attorney, then U.S. Attorney, for the Northern District of Texas.
Birth, education and early career
Saldaña was born in 1951 in Corpus Christi, Texas, as the youngest of seven children. Her father Luis was a plumber and her mother, Inez Garcia Saldaña, was a nurse. She graduated from W.B. Ray High School in 1970 and attended Del Mar Junior College. She graduated from Texas A&I University summa cum laude in August 1973. After teaching eighth grade language arts in Dallas, she began working in June 1974 for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a technician, then in 1975 she became a management intern for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, returning to the EEOC as an investigator later in 1975. From 1976 to 1981, Saldaña worked for the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.
She earned a JD from Southern Methodist University in May 1984. She was admitted to the Texas Bar in November 1984.
Legal career
After graduation from law school, Saldaña clerked for U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders in 1984–1985, then entered private law practice from 1985–1987 with the law firm of Haynes and Boone, working in communications law and employment law. She then moved to the large law firm Baker Botts for 11 years as a trial attorney, first as an associate, then from 1994-1998 as a partner. She was an unsuccessful candidate for a judgeship in 2002.
Saldaña started as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2004, prosecuting fraud and corruption cases, eventually becoming Deputy Criminal Chief in charge of the Northern District’s Major Fraud and Public Corruption section. One major bribery and extortion case prosecuted by her office concerning affordable housing contracts was described by a major Dallas newspaper as “the largest in Dallas history”; as one result, Dallas city council member and Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill was convicted and sentenced to 18 years.
In 2011, the Hispanic National Bar Association named Saldaña as the Latina Attorney of the Year.
Saldaña in 2011 became U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Cases she prosecuted included bank and mortgage fraud, civil rights, human trafficking, and public corruption.
Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Saldaña was nominated as Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement by President Barack Obama in September 2014. After being approved unanimously by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Obama administration announced actions to shield immigrants from deportation, and the subsequent vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on her nomination was 10-8, with all Republicans voting against. She was confirmed 55-39 on December 16, 2014, and sworn in on December 23, 2014.
During Saldaña’s tenure, ICE had a budget of approximately $6 billion and had nearly 20,000 employees in 400 offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 48 countries outside the United States.
During Saldaña’s years as ICE director, employee morale at ICE, which had been in decline since 2009, underwent a strong surge. Then-Acting Deputy Secretary Russell C. Deyo praised Saldaña’s law enforcement leadership and employee engagement efforts at her retirement ceremony on January 11, 2017, noting that ICE’s global employee satisfaction score had risen 11%. A subsequent think-tank study used the employee morale scores calculated on 14 criteria by the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Government, noting that scores at ICE during Saldaña’s leadership increased by 20 points in almost all categories from May 2015 to May 2017.
Saldaña was criticized from the political left for treating noncriminal refugees too harshly and from the political right for allowing immigrant criminals back on the street. Her answer to critics was that she was required to follow the laws and the decisions of courts, and she defended the removal prioritization of public safety and national security threats, multiple offenders, and recent border crossers.