Top Dem rejects calls to abolish​ ICE but insists party will secure reform and control

WASHINGTON — Some Americans digging out from ferocious winter storms are more concerned about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents abusing power than with their own plight, a senior member of Congress said.

“In my district, you know, we had a bad ice storm,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story on the Capitol steps on a sunny if frigid Tuesday.

“As I talk to local officials about getting the utilities back on and making sure there's warming centers available and all that, in the midst of that, they talk about ICE. ‘What y'all gonna do about ICE?’”

In the wake of two deadly shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis, many Democrats say ICE should be abolished.

As the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, Thompson won’t go that far. But the 17-term congressman does say ICE needs a total overhaul.

‘Agency out of control’

Founded in 2002, in the aftermath of 9/11, the House Homeland Security Committee was intended to be temporary. But it was made permanent in 2005, with Thompson its first ranking member. When Democrats held the Hill, Thompson spent four years as chair.

The Department of Homeland Security oversees ICE and other immigration agencies involved in arrests, clashes and protests in Minneapolis over the last month.

Thompson, 78, tends to be more moderate than the new breed of progressive Democratic bomb-throwers, but after Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, the congressman said his constituents were keeping the pressure up for action.

“So what they see is not who they believe this country is about. And because of that, they just said, ‘What are y'all gonna do?’” Thompson told Raw Story.

“Democrats are at a real moment where we have an opportunity to show people that we want to do what's right, rather than just being perceived as inside-the-Beltway politicians.”

Polls reveal increasing public rejection of the Trump administration's hardline anti-migrant tactics, and many Democrats feel the wind in their sails.

In Congress, the killings have prompted heated negotiations on DHS reform.

Democrats first refused to rubber-stamp funding for the department, prompting a partial government shutdown.

On Tuesday, amid drama as the House voted to send a funding measure to President Donald Trump to be signed, Thompson told Raw Story issues requiring action included “the training component, you got the fact that [ICE] are breaking into schools, houses of worship, [the lack of] judicial warrants [for searches], masks.”

Democrats want agents to operate without covering their faces, to carry identification and to wear body cameras — the last a step Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said will happen in Minneapolis.

“I mean the excuse they use for masks doesn't hold water, because if it was law enforcement, that doesn't walk around with a mask,” Thompson said.

“I think this is a real moment for Congress to really rein in an agency that's out of control.”

He’s far from alone.

“This is a historic moment, folks,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) lectured a gaggle of reporters on the Capitol steps.

“Americans are being shot and killed. Journalists like you are being arrested. This is in violation of our First Amendment guarantees.

“They were put in there by the very first Congress of the United States because some were worried that … individuals didn't have enough protections within the Constitution.

“Are we going to walk away from the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights today? This Congress will be held to account. Republicans will be held to account as Americans are shot and killed on the street, as Little Liam [Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old from Minnesota] is taken [and later released].

“Children in this country are fearful they are going to be taken by authorities in America.

“We are at an incredibly historic moment. We either uphold this Constitution and call out the criminal, lawless behavior of this President and his administration or we could be doomed.”

‘ICE has a purpose’

Noem remains under pressure, after responding to both Minneapolis killings by accusing the victims of acting with criminal intent.

Those killings have led to calls to abolish ICE, which Thompson rejects.

“No, ICE has a purpose,” he told Raw Story. “But you got to fix it. Overall, it has to stand the same scrutiny of any other federal law enforcement agents. You know, nothing special.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) asks a question in a House hearing. REUTERS/Anna Rose Layden

Thompson’s losing any faith he might have retained in Noem, a former House colleague, given her responses to the killings of Good and Pretti.

“There was no substantive investigation that would have led her to believe that position in both killings,” Thompson said.

Protocol, Thompson said, would have been for the secretary to simply launch an independent investigation. It’s not that hard to do, Thompson said.

Animated, Thompson said Noem should’ve said: “It's still under investigation. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave … and because it's us, we're gonna bring somebody else in to investigate.”

Noting the agents were not immediately placed on administrative leave, Thompson continued: “I've been a mayor. I've been a county commissioner, and every time there was one law enforcement agency involved in … an automobile accident, whatever, [we] pause[d] to give the public confidence that it will be looked at in a fair and impartial manner.

“You bring somebody else in. But [the Trump administration didn’t] even let anybody come.”

Like most Democrats, Thompson fears the President is setting up a two-tier legal system, one for liberal protesters, another for his MAGA base.

But, Thompson said, “You figure like this. You got 3,000 ICE agents in Minneapolis, right? You got 100,000 immigrants. You got 2 million-plus in Texas, and you don't have that many ICE, right? You got a million-plus [immigrants] in Florida. You don't have that many.

“So look at the waste of resources that you focus on, because you're making ICE out as a political targeting agency rather than an immigration enforcement agency. And people get that.”