On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) stated that “we need to reform ICE. I think we need to get rid of a bunch of rogue agents. But there are a lot of good agents that work in ICE that handle our trade, that handle border security, that do a lot of good work in my community, in my district.”
Host Dana Bash asked, “There will be a lot of Democrats in the next Congress who want to abolish ICE. You’ve criticized the administration’s immigration enforcement — as you did just now — but you haven’t gone as far as saying abolish ICE. What should your party do about immigration and ICE specifically if you win [the] majority?”
Gonzalez answered, “Well, abolish is kind of, like, a pretty strong word, but I think we need to reform ICE. I think we need to get rid of a bunch of rogue agents. But there are a lot of good agents that work in ICE that handle our trade, that handle border security, that do a lot of good work in my community, in my district. And I give them a lot of credit for the hard work they do. It’s disheartening for me, and for many of them that I have a very good relationship with, when they see these new policies that have come out of this administration, with a lot of new agents that haven’t been properly trained and have been directed to really just bring abuse to the streets of the American people, and especially in Latino communities, and people are very upset. Many of the agents will tell me privately that they don’t agree with the policies that have come out. Some of our local law enforcement has to assist ICE because of the governor and some of the agreements that have been made with the administration. But they’re very upset that they’re having to do this. Just the fact that you have these unmarked vehicles with masked agents popping up out of nowhere, tackling people with a weed eater in their hand or a lawnmower, pushing a lawnmower and beating them to the pulp is shocking to most Americans, not only Latino Americans, just good, red-blooded Americans. This is not — what we’ve seen, the images we’ve seen on social media and on the news [are] not the America the world knows and loves, and it’s not who we really are. And we know, when we see these images, and when we see these policies coming out of the administration, that we need to change course. And I think that is exactly what is happening at the ballot box. And these overwhelming numbers in districts that Democrats should have lost or should be losing are actually reflecting the policies this administration has put forth.”
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