Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) of the 43-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus details aggressive ICE tactics, including a 2,450% rise in arrests—92% of detainees with no criminal record—and 42 deaths in custody, like Renee Good shot in Minnesota. The CHC challenges ICE’s masked officers (a Mayorkas-era policy), blocked IRS data sharing, and sued airlines over passenger info leaks, while pushing a comprehensive ICE reform bill after the House passed Homeland Security funding (220-207). Espaillat argues ICE’s militarization and civil enforcement overreach demand dismantling, contrasting with VP JD Vance’s defense of agents amid protests. [Automatically generated summary]
Thank you for having me first and foremost, Greta.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as you know, is a 43-member entity, which includes four U.S. senators, that has been at the forefront of the entire immigration debate.
We have developed a strategy of confronting that budgetarily and legislatively, also to look at possibilities to act upon some of those actions in the courtrooms across the country, and finally trying to formulate public sentiment around what is going on with ICE and immigration in general.
In fact, one of our members, Senator Alex Padilla, very early on was, I believe, assaulted by ICE in California, thrown up against the wall, thrown slammed on the floor.
The entire country saw what happened.
This was very early on when the debate began to heat up.
But now we're in the courtrooms.
We have been involved with gaining access to the detention centers, preventing the IRS from sharing confidential tax information of Americans, as well as holding the airlines accountable from selling passenger data to ICE.
We have been involved in several court cases.
We are currently debating and putting together a comprehensive ICE legislation that will be introduced in the next couple of weeks.
That will be, I think, a roadmap for the rest of the Democratic conference to follow.
Well, in fact, those numbers show that the American public is leaning now in our direction.
And we're asking for dismantling ICE, which means let's take it apart.
Anything that's not working should be taken apart and should be made better.
And so right now, the violent behavior and culture that is gripping ICE is unacceptable.
And the vast majority, over 54% of the American people feel that ICE is going in the wrong direction.
They feel it is too aggressive.
And so let's take a look at it.
Should ICE officer be masked?
Should they be anonymous without a first name and a last name, no shield number?
Will you open your door to someone that's masked and you don't know whether they are in fact an ICE agent or somebody that may want to harm you?
Where are they recruiting these officers?
Are they being trained properly?
Do they have the mental fitness to do the job?
Do they have to carry high caliber weapon?
Immigration is a civil law issue.
It's not a criminal law matter.
And so these are all legitimate questions that we must debate as the American people continue to lose faith in an agency that blatantly and openly and visibly, you see it every day, are being very aggressive and assaulting and shooting people across America.
So we're very concerned that this is happening and that it's happening to people that have not committed a crime, that are just providing for their families.
And that in fact, the president lied to us when he said that he was just going to round up the bad guys, criminals.
In fact, he's rounding up every day residents and Americans.
And as such, in fact, immigrants are not automatically entitled to free or legal services because the matter is a civil law matter.
If you break the law while you're here, then obviously it's a criminal law matter.
And we're not saying that if you are a violent person that has committed and be found guilty or committed a violent crime, that you should not be held to the letter of the law.
What we're saying is that most of the people, 92% of the people in ICE custody right now, have not committed a crime and have not been found guilty of a criminal matter.
Well, yesterday we met with former Secretary Mayorkas and he told us that that was in the policy of the agency when he was there.
That this is an aberration, a departure from the normal.
That in fact, you know, law, law-abiding and agencies across the country, police departments, state law enforcement agencies, for the most part, if not in its entirety, do not wear a mask.
When you see a police officer, even detectives, for example, in the New York City Police Department, involving very complicated cases and maybe even violent cases, do not wear a mask.
They have a first name, a last name, a shield number, and they knock on your door and they show their credentials.
By the way, this helps build confidence between law enforcement and our communities.
Right now, ICE is an anonymous agency, and as such, because it is anonymous, because it's under the radar, is committing very violent, and I would dare to say, illegal acts.
And frankly, a lot of the media is lying about the job that they do every single day.
Now, it doesn't mean that there aren't occasionally stories out there, there aren't occasionally videos out there that suggest that these guys, or at least some of the people who work for them, are not doing everything right.
But very often, if you look at the context of what's going on, you understand that these people are under an incredible amount of duress, an incredible amount of chaos.
And because of a few very far-left agitators, a lot of these guys are unable to do their jobs without being harassed, without being doxed, and sometimes without being assaulted.
That's totally unacceptable.
And that's one of the things that I want to send a message to: yes, come out and protest, protest me, protest our immigration policy, but do it peacefully.
If you assault a law enforcement officer, the Trump administration and the Department of Justice is going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.