A group of Senate Democrats are pressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the masking of officers not in uniform during its operations.<\/p>\n
In the letter, sent to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, the group of Democrats argued the masks and lack of uniforms have led to chaos in Los Angeles as agents have looked to make arrests. The letter also accused ICE of seeking to meet “arbitrary quotas” set by Stephen Miller, a key adviser to President Trump widely seen as demanding huge increases in ICE detentions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe write regarding the apparent widespread violations of historical norms and traditions in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s (\u201cICE\u201d) operations in Los Angeles and across the country by engaging in law enforcement activities\u2014including arrests\u2014without wearing identifying uniforms and while masked,\u201d the lawmakers wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs ICE engages in unprecedented numbers of immigration raids across the country, reportedly in response to arbitrary quotas set by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, it is crucial that ICE personnel not engage in conduct that is all but guaranteed to sow chaos and confusion and put law enforcement officers in danger,\u201d the group added.<\/p>\n
The Monday letter is signed by Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla (Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Peter Welch (Vt.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Tina Smith (Minn.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Raphael Warnock (Ga.).<\/p>\n
The Hill has reached out to ICE and the White House for comment.<\/p>\n
Since his return to office a few months ago, Trump\u2019s administration has cracked down intensely on immigration, resulting in backlash from Democrats and those on the American left.<\/p>\n
In their letter, the group of Democrats questioned ICE on its \u201cpolicies with regards to wearing masks while on duty\u201d and its \u201cpolicies with regards to wearing uniforms or other identifiable markers while on duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStorming courthouses, grabbing students off the street, raiding places of work, and sweeping through restaurants at prime dining hours are in and of themselves tactics clearly designed to engender fear and sow chaos in the population,\u201d the senators said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing so in plainclothes, with no identification of their name or agency, while wearing a mask designed to obscure the agent\u2019s face, represents a clear attempt to compound that fear and chaos \u2013 and to avoid accountability for agents\u2019 actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
When reached for comment about the letter and the comments in it about Miller, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, \u201cheroic ICE officers are simply doing their jobs and enforcing federal immigration law, with the utmost professionalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDangerous smears and misinformation from elected Democrats radicalize their supporters to violently attack and obstruct federal law enforcement,\u201d Jackson added. \u201cThis letter is just another attempt to demonize law enforcement officers. Because of comments from the left, assaults against ICE agents have increased by nearly 700% this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Updated at 8:06 p.m. EDT.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A group of Senate Democrats are pressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the masking of officers not in uniform during its operations. In the letter, sent to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, the group of Democrats argued the masks and lack of uniforms have led to chaos in Los Angeles as agents have looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkerstyn.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}