On Wednesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) commented on the possibility of a government shutdown over ICE by saying that, among “things that we believe are appropriate in this instance, are demanding be part of any final bill,” would be a requirement that “ICE should not be able to storm houses of worship, hospitals, and schools.”
Co-host Jonathan Lemire asked, “Leader Jeffries, let’s switch gears now and talk about the upcoming government funding bill, whether the government will perhaps even shut down as that deadline approaches. And a thorny issue is funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and, in particular, ICE, in the wake of that fatal shooting in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. Talk to us about the divisions that you and your colleagues feel. What happens next?”
Jeffries answered, “Well, ICE is completely and totally out of control. Donald Trump promised, with respect to immigration enforcement, that the administration was going to target violent felons who are here in the country illegally. That’s something the American people support. The American people do not support the targeting, the arrest, the detention, the brutalization of American citizens, certainly do not find acceptable the killing of Renee Nicole Good and the targeting of law-abiding immigrant families and communities. And so, I think, from our standpoint — and we’ll have a discussion in about an hour in our Caucus meeting about the path forward — but clearly, there needs to be accountability mechanisms that [are] put into law so that ICE conducts itself like every other law enforcement agency in the United States of America. That’s not too much to ask. So, some of the things that we believe are appropriate in this instance, are demanding be part of any final bill, are a warrant requirement. That’s common sense. ICE should not be able to storm houses of worship, hospitals, and schools. That’s common sense. That relates to protocols that exist for every other law enforcement agency in the country. ICE should have a use-of-force standard. None currently exists. Of course, the notion that masked ICE agents are running around brutalizing American citizens, utilizing taxpayer dollars, completely and totally unacceptable. And so, these are the types of things that we believe should be put into place to get ICE under control, consistent with the demands of the American people.”
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