The heads of the agencies carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda are testifying in Congress, parrying questions over how they are prosecuting immigration enforcement inside American cities.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rodney Scott, who leads Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, who is the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, were called to appear Tuesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security amid falling public support for immigration enforcement.
Their agencies are flush with cash from Trump’s big tax-and-spending law, but Democrats are threatening to shut down DHS Friday night if Republicans don’t agree on new limits aimed at forcing agents to follow the law and the Constitution following killings in the streets and expanding detentions.
Trump’s immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinized in recent weeks after Homeland Security officers killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good. The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that critics say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting the enforcement actions.
ICE has undergone a massive hiring boom, deploying immigration officers across the country. Lyons is likely to face questioning over a memo he signed last year telling ICE officers that they didn’t need a judge’s warrant to forcibly enter a house to arrest a deportee, a memo that went against years of ICE practice and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches.
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Democratic rep says ICE is acting like a ‘fascist regime’
Todd Lyons got into a heated exchange with Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who was comparing masked ICE agents to the actions of those in Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union.
The ICE chief interjected that the congressman was asking “the wrong type of questioning,” but Goldman cut him off.
“If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one,” Goldman said.
“This is not the America I know and love,” he said.
Goldman went on to call explanations as to why federal immigration agents were wearing masks during operations due to fears of doxing “outright bogus.”
