This week, we published an investigation into David Brouillette,
the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who reportedly killed
25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine earlier
this month. That investigation revealed a long history of alleged
violence against Brouillette’s ex-wives and children. “To be honest, I
was surprised anyone would give that man a gun,” a former friend said of
Brouillette.
On July 22, the advocacy group Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 active and former ICE and CBP agents
charged with sexual and violent crimes between 2007 and 2026.
Brouillette is no outlier, said Lynn Tramonte, Executive Director of the
Ohio Immigrant Alliance and author of the report. “But we have no way
of knowing the full extent of the problem, because the agency doesn’t
even look at family court records.”
A federal employment website
states that “all personnel employed by ICE are mandated to undergo a
comprehensive background investigation.” When asked for comment on the
Ohio Immigrant Alliance report, a Department of Homeland Security
spokesperson said “We take allegations regarding misconduct seriously
and cherish the public’s trust. We work tirelessly to uphold the rule of
law and hold ourselves accountable.”
Fifty of 59 cases the group documented
were sex crimes, many of them committed against children. And the
problem, according to their research, is getting worse: “Cases
documented in 2025 and 2026 alone account for 42.4 percent of the list —
25 out of 59 cases,” Tramonte wrote. “Compare that to 2020, the
previous peak year, which had just 6.”
BASH: Court documents reveal one of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives. One of
his ex-wives told my colleague Erin Burnett that she experienced severe
domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent
behavior, and even that, if anything ever happened to her, he'd be the
one to look at. I should say he denied the allegations. But, at
one point, a judge ordered him to temporarily relinquish any firearms.
Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?
HOMAN: No, if those of those are facts, he -- I don't think he should ever have cleared vetting. When
they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at
all that stuff. So I know, based on that information -- that's part of
the ongoing investigation. How -- did the vetting process fail? Was that
information not available? Did they not know? So there's a
separate administrative investigation on what happened here. Did you --
did we have that information? Did we not have that information? But the
vetting process, I -- if that was factual, he would have an almost
impossible time to pass vetting.
BASH: So does that raise
questions about ICE's vetting procedures, especially as it has in the
past several months ramped up its law enforcement officers, who are
around the country looking for undocumented immigrants?
HOMAN: Well, look, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is a kind of a rare instance. But,
again, it's under review. There's several things under review, right?
The training is under review. And I know that the acting ICE director
now, David Venturella, has added additional training, because I'm one
that supports you can't -- you can't ever have too much training.
No, it's not a rare instance. To meet the numbers, they've repeatedly let people in that they shouldn't and then there's the issue of training. The Maine shooting (murder) carried out by David Brouillette is the perfect example of that. Nancy Pena Fregoso (VANGUARD) explains:
According to the investigation, DHS
launched an aggressive campaign last year to hire 10,000 new enforcement
officers while directing ICE to increase street-level arrests of
alleged undocumented immigrants to as many as 2,000 per day. Ashley
Brouillette said her ex-husband told her he accepted a position with ICE
in November 2025.
The investigation noted that David
Brouillette joined the agency during a period when ICE significantly
reduced training requirements for new officers.
When President Trump announced an anti-crime task force for Memphis
last fall, federal and local officials never mentioned immigration
enforcement as a goal.
But the influx of federal agents into
the city has led to widespread immigration arrests — a majority without
criminal convictions, according to an Institute for Public Service Reporting data analysis.
NPR
reviewed arrest data and spoke with lawyers, immigrants, activists and
community members to piece together the task force's impact on Memphis
over the past 10 months.
It found paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods, where scenes played out reminiscent of Chicago and Minneapolis at
the height of targeted federal immigration enforcement actions. Aid
networks ramped up their work to help immigrants too fearful to leave
their homes. Hotlines rang out with calls from panicked immigrants. And
routine traffic stops led to immigration arrests.
All of this has happened without the glare of the national spotlight
and amid muted public outcry, as local and state leaders have largely
cooperated with the federal government.
Meanwhile, Trump has
said he has plans for similar task forces elsewhere, particularly in
Republican-led states where he has more political buy-in.
t was just after 8am on 16 August and Francisco
Longoria, who runs a party supply business, was driving his truck down a
suburban southern California
street to deliver a jumper for a water slide. But this ordinary
Saturday morning turned into a nightmare when, suddenly, three unmarked
vehicles stopped his truck and four masked men jumped out.
Longoria, who had brought his son Jonathan Longoria and son-in-law Daniel Rascon with him, wondered if they were being abducted.
“I see what happens in Mexico,” he said in Spanish. “I thought, are we going to be kidnapped by these masked men?”
The masked men were agents with US immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection
(CBP). They wore police gear, but Longoria said they didn’t identify
themselves. As the agents walked toward the truck with their guns drawn,
the passengers pulled out their phones to record video.
One
agent pulled on the door handle, knocked on the window, and told
Longoria to roll down his window, but the agent didn’t have a warrant.
When Longoria didn’t comply, the agent smashed the glass and struck him
in the face. Another agent broke the front passenger’s window.
With
the agents on either side of the truck, and the road ahead clear,
Longoria hit the gas. As he drove away, an agent shot three rounds,
leaving two bullet holes in the passenger’s side of the truck. One
bullet barely missed the back window. Sitting in the back seat, Rascon
felt terrified. “One of us is about to get killed,” he thought.
“I was afraid for my life,” Longoria said. “I felt like death was imminent.”
The whole encounter lasted less than a minute, but it was only the beginning of the family’s harrowing tale.
The shooting happened a few blocks away from
their home in San Bernardino, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. When
they arrived back at home minutes later, they called the police to
report that masked men had shot at them.
Instead
of receiving help, Longoria found himself in the crosshairs of a US
government investigation that culminated in a night-time ambush of the
family’s home, a felony charge accusing Longoria of weaponizing his
vehicle against officers, and months in ICE detention – only for the
case against him to eventually be dropped.
JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: Since her son's death, Rachel Reyes has tried to
take a break from the news. But she says it's difficult, especially
when the headlines hit close to home.
RACHEL REYES: It's
been, honestly, very triggering because it just brings back the memories
of this pattern of abuse that's still going on.
KIM:
Earlier this month, two men were shot and killed by ICE officers in the
span of a week, and in both cases, the deadly encounters happened during
traffic stops. The same was true for Reyes' 23-year-old son, Ruben Ray
Martinez.
REYES: It really breaks my heart for the families because I understand the nightmare they're going through.
KIM:
Reyes' son was fatally shot in south Texas back in March of last year,
two months into President Trump's second term when he quickly launched
his aggressive immigration campaign. Martinez was the first U.S. citizen
killed by a federal immigration agent since Trump's return to office.
The officer who opened fire worked for Homeland Security Investigations,
an arm of ICE. Eleven months after her son's death, Martinez's case was
finally presented to a grand jury in Texas this February. They declined
to bring charges against the agent who shot Martinez.
REYES: I don't feel like we've got justice. I don't feel like that was right.
KIM:
Martinez was shot three times. The Department of Homeland Security has
repeatedly accused Martinez of intentionally running over an HSI
officer, who was there to help direct traffic after a car accident. But
NPR reviewed body camera footage from the night of the shooting, and
it's unclear from the videos whether Martinez's car struck an agent.
After this month's deadly ICE shootings, DHS said last week it planned
to pause nonurgent vehicle stops. But soon after, White House press
secretary Karoline Leavitt said they would, in fact, continue.
Lives are being destroyed by Chump's war on immigrants. Markwayne Mullen hasn't stopped the harm and doesn't appear smart enough to know how to improve things even slightly. While he's failing as Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of Health and Human Services Junior isn't doing any better. Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
Measles cases in the U.S. have surpassed last year’s totals to reach a new 35-year high, and we’re only in July.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced
Friday that there have been 2,318 measles cases in 2026 so far, more
than the 2,289 cases reported in 2025 and many more than the 283 cases
reported in 2024. The last time the numbers were this high was in 1991, and the past 18 months have seen more measles cases than the last 25 years combined.
The vast majority of infected people—93 percent—were
unvaccinated, according to the CDC. The number is expected to only grow
higher, as new outbreaks have been reported in Wyoming, Delaware, and
Arizona. It doesn’t help that the CDC hasn’t had a permanent director
for most of President Trump’s second term, and Secretary of Health and
Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is skeptical of all vaccines,
has a history of dismissing measles, even though it can be fatal.
In
2000, the U.S. had declared measles eradicated in the country, but the
Pan American Health Organization will review that status later this
year. Meanwhile, Kennedy’s HHS isn’t openly supporting vaccination, with the secretary suggesting that vitamin A is an effective treatment for measles.
Friday on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Maria Godoy reported
on the record high numbers. Junior is destroying the American people's
health. Chump's letting him. This will take years to repair. We'll
still be trying to fix it when Junior dies. He has seriously harmed
public health.
As Elaine noted Friday in "Chump and Hegseth insult the fallen,"
Chump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth removed four service
members killed in the Iran War from the official count. Elaine pointed
out, "Chump and Hegseth dishonor our fallen. They spit on them with
their
actions. Note that Chump was happy to use the four earlier this week
when he lied that the four were in the war because they opposed Iran
getting nuclear weapons. But then it was time to pull the four from the
official death toll." Saturday, Tim Arango, Georgia Gee and Pooja Salhotra (NEW YORK TIME) report:
As of Saturday morning, the Pentagon’s website was still listing 14 service members killed.
“It
is truly disgusting and disheartening to lower the count of our service
members who gave their life for this country,” said Tanya Stamos, a
Navy veteran and the founder of Operation R.J.S., a nonprofit in honor
of her father, Richard James Stamos, also a veteran, that provides free
telehealth counseling and support.
She
continued: “As a Navy combat veteran myself, I find it a slap in the
face that it is so easy to disregard my brothers and sisters in arms who
raised their hand and gave an oath to protect and serve foreign and
domestic, all for the government who is choosing to wipe their names
from history.”
The brother of Dominic Ascioti, 36, is in the military and has been deployed to the Middle East during the war.
Mr.
Ascioti said the change in the count by the Pentagon was either “gross
incompetence” or “a deliberate attempt to mislead or mischaracterize
reality.”
“As
families we need, to the best of the government’s ability, some
transparency,” said Mr. Ascioti, who added that he opposed the war. “We
want to know what’s happening with our family, and we want to know what
happened to our family if something happened.”
The
criticism of the Pentagon over its accounting of American casualties in
the war has extended to the halls of Congress. On Thursday, a group of
Democratic senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
requesting a “comprehensive accounting” of the number of service members
killed or wounded.
In
the week before the recent attacks that killed three soldiers in
Jordan, there were three other strikes by Iran that left dozens injured.
These casualties were not immediately disclosed
by the Pentagon, raising questions about whether the government was
meeting its obligation to inform the country about the number of service
members who had been either wounded or killed.
He's a disgrace and so is Hegseth. Their decision was outrageous. It was insulting to the fallen.
What’s for dinner? Lately, at Apral Jack’s house, it’s whatever is on sale.
Jack,
50, scouts an app for deals at her local supermarket before she buys
groceries. When she reaches the store, she looks in the weekly circular
for coupons she might have missed. If shelf prices look too high, she tries to find lower prices someplace else.
“The apples went up here, the ones I eat, so now I’m not going to get them here,” Jack said as she pushed a cart into a Stop & Shop near her home in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back
on favorite foods are new habits for her and millions of other
Americans as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a
half-century. Buying food to eat at home has gotten 33% more expensive
since the beginning of 2019, according to government figures.
With a conflict
in the Middle East creating more price pressures, the cost of filling
refrigerators, freezers and pantries has made affordability a central issue in the fall midterm elections.
Residents of four urban areas where food inflation has exceeded the national average shared how steadily rising prices are changing the way they shop. They described hunting for discounts, switching to store brands and feeling grateful for food banks. Some are buying less meat and skipping nonessentials like cookies. Others are buying less food overall.
In
2025, nearly one in five adults ages 18 to 64 — almost 20% — paid for
groceries with savings, and nearly one in 20 — more than 5% — bought
them with cash from a payday advance loan.
Those
are two of the findings of a survey by the Urban Institute, a
Washington, D.C.–based nonpartisan think tank that conducts economic and
social policy research.
[. . .]
New Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that food costs have gone up over the past year.
According to its July 14 report, food-at-home costs rose 2.7% over the 12 months ending in June.
Over that same period:
The cost of fruits and vegetables rose 5.3%
The cost of nonalcoholic beverages increased 2.9%
The cost of meats, poultry, fish and eggs was up 2.6%
The cost of cereal and bakery products rose 2.4%
The cost of dairy and related products increased 0.4%
A growing number of Amazon and gig economy workers earn so
little that they rely on public assistance to put food on the table and
obtain health coverage, a Government Accountability Office study released Wednesday found.
The report is yet another example of the affordability
crisis affecting many in the United States, where even some employed
Americans need government help to pay for basic needs like food and
healthcare.
The number of Amazon employees receiving food stamps and Medicaid in September nearly tripled since the GAO’s previous report in 2020,
according to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested both analyses.
Nearly 12,350 Amazon staffers were enrolled in food stamps and nearly
11,350 were covered by Medicaid in the states GAO examined.
Meanwhile, rideshare and food delivery companies are now
among the top employers of recipients in the two safety net programs in
several states, which was not the case five years earlier. Those
companies include Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart.
This
is the Chump economy. And the addition to SNAP enrollment comes as
Chump's cuts to SNAP are really registering. People are going hungry in
this country -- that includes children. And it's thanks to Chump's
'Big Beautiful Bill' which gutted the safety net while giving
millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks. Aliss Higham (NEWSWEEK) notes:
More
than 1 million children across 19 states have stopped receiving
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits since Congress
passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in July 2025, according
to a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
(CBPP).
The findings
come as SNAP enrollment has fallen sharply nationwide. According to
data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), participation
dropped from about 42 million people in early 2025 to just over 37
million by April 2026: a decline of roughly 5 million recipients
following major changes to the federal food assistance program under the
Trump administration.
The CBPP's analysis suggests children have accounted for a substantial
share of that decline, with more than 1.06 million losing access to
benefits across the 19 states examined.
Wholesome
eating is a central part of the Trump administration's efforts to Make
America Healthy Again. But a landmark nutrition education program for
recipients of federal food assistance and other low-income people will
cease to exist within weeks after President Trump eliminated it last
summer when he signed a massive Republican spending and tax bill.
For
decades, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Nutrition
Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program, known as SNAP-Ed, has
funded programs such as community cooking classes, farmers markets in
low-income neighborhoods, school nutrition lessons and more in every
U.S. state. The program is a "pillar of the public health infrastructure
in the US," according to a report published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
The decision to end SNAP-Ed at a time of rising food prices and the Trump administration's push for healthy eating has mystified nutrition advocates and public health experts alike.
"It
doesn't make sense when we have an administration [promoting] the Make
America Healthy Again efforts that are focused on decreasing consumption
of ultra-processed foods and wanting to encourage people to eat more
fruits and vegetables," said Tashara Leak, a professor of nutritional
sciences at Cornell University, "to then get rid of the largest
federally funded nutrition education program that helps to achieve those
goals."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Following tragic killings in Maine
and Texas, Senators call for reforms, body-worn camera deployment, and
independent investigations
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA),
Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is joining dozens of
her Senate colleagues in calling for stronger accountability measures
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. In a letter to
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the
thirty-nine Senators urge DHS to fulfill its previous commitments to
deploy and expand the usage of body-worn cameras, strengthen officer
identification requirements, and review enforcement protocols.
The measures suggested by the Senators are intended to help prevent
future deadly encounters involving ICE enforcement officers—and comes
after two fatal shootings during immigration enforcement operations in
Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas.
“The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas,
coupled with similar incidents elsewhere in the country, are completely
unacceptable,” the senators wrote. “Rather than making
our communities safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously
undermine confidence in law enforcement generally.”
“The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan
Sebastian Durán Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry
startling similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed
in enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets.
Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a
vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands
immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations
(including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement
personnel) along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement
protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent
such tragedies. These recent events have further compromised the
credibility of DHS and fractured public trust within communities across
our country. In each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that
officers were acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts
surrounding the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure,
no DHS officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn
cameras that could be reviewed by investigators or members of the
public,” the senators continued.
“We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted
criminals from our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved
without endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch
could either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as ‘the
worst of the worst,’ making these tragic deaths even more egregious.
The American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to
honor your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to
implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you
to codify reforms into law,” the senators concluded.
Senator Murray has been outspoken and proactive in her efforts to negotiate necessary guardrails for ICE and CBP in the wake of unprofessional and unconstitutional behavior
among those agencies. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee,
she led Democrats’ efforts fighting tooth and nail to secure meaningful
reforms in law to rein in ICE and Border Patrol—which Republicans
ultimately refused altogether and chose to skirt Democrats by delivering
another massive blank check for the agencies with no accountability.
Last month, at a Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on
the FY27 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS)—Murray pressed Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the conduct of ICE
and Border Patrol and Republicans’ refusal to enact reforms into law.
In November 2025, Senator Murray joined 48 of her colleagues in the Senate and House of Representatives in introducing the Restoring Access to Detainees Act,
which would mandate that DHS allow people who have been detained to
contact their legal counsel and families. In February 2025, Senator
Murray signed onto a letter demanding that DHS end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members, and continued to push for answers from DHS on the matter last December. In March 2025, Murray also reintroduced her Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act. She and Senator Richard Blumenthal led 27 of their Senate colleagues last year in a letter expressing concern with prevalence and the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women in ICE detention.
In Washington state, Senator Murray has been conducting oversight of
the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC), despite the Trump
administration’s efforts to block Congressional oversight of federal
immigration detention facilities. After a protracted legal battle over
Washington state’s ability to enforce health and safety standards at
NWIPC, a federal appeals court ruled in
August 2025 that the state should be allowed to enforce such standards
at the detention center, and that failure to comply could result in
fines of up to $10,000 per violation. In December 2025, Senator Murray led Members of the Washington state Congressional delegation in aletter to
Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons expressing grave concerns with
conditions at NWIPC in Tacoma, Washington and demanding answers to a
long list of questions regarding overcrowding and lack of access to
medical services, food, and legal counsel for individuals detained at
the facility.
Joining Murray on the letter are U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME),
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gary Peters (D-MI), Alex
Padilla (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Chris Coons
(D-DE), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH),
Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Adam
Schiff (D-CA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Richard
Blumenthal (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Martin
Heinrich (D-NM), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tim
Kaine (D-VA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Jeff
Merkley (D-OR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mazie
Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), John Hickenlooper (D-CO),
Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar
(D-MN), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and John Fetterman
(D-PA).
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:
Dear Secretary Mullin:
The recent fatal shootings involving U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) officers, specifically within U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Biddeford, Maine, and Houston, Texas,
coupled with fatalities during similar incidents elsewhere in the
country, are completely unacceptable. Rather than making our communities
safer, these actions endanger our citizens and seriously undermine
confidence in law enforcement generally.
The tragic deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Durán
Guerrero occurred less than a week apart and carry startling
similarities. In both incidents, the individuals were killed in
enforcement actions in which they were not the intended targets.
Furthermore, both individuals were shot by DHS officials while inside a
vehicle. The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands
immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations
(including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement
personnel), along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement
protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent
such tragedies.
These recent events have further compromised the credibility of DHS
and fractured public trust within communities across our country. In
each case, DHS quickly issued statements asserting that officers were
acting in self-defense, even before evidence of the facts surrounding
the incidents had been gathered. Compounding this failure, no DHS
officials involved in these fatal shootings wore body-worn cameras that
could be reviewed by investigators or members of the public.
While DHS has previously acknowledged that body-worn cameras promote
public trust and increase officer and public safety, accountability, and
transparency, the Department has clearly not prioritized acquiring
cameras. Recent statements from DHS and the White House assert that DHS
could not acquire cameras due to the government shutdown. However, since
July 2025, DHS received nearly $40 billion in the One Big Beautiful
Bill Act (OBBBA) that could have been used to swiftly acquire and deploy
body-worn cameras for both existing ICE law enforcement officers and
the reported 10,000 additional officers hired since enactment of OBBBA.
Contrary to recent statements made by the Department and the White
House, DHS has had more than sufficient time and funding to procure and
deploy a body-worn camera for every officer before the end of 2025.
Following public outrage in the aftermath of the killings of Alex
Pretti and Renee Good, the former Secretary announced in February of
this year that DHS law enforcement officers would be required to wear
body-worn cameras across the country, and ICE issued a directive
reinforcing its policy to activate body-worn cameras during enforcement
activities wherever cameras are available. Then-Secretary Noem stated
that “[a]s funding is available, the body-worn camera program will be
expanded nationwide.” In March of this year, the White House border
czar, Tom Homan, stated that the administration would expand the use of
body-worn cameras by DHS officers undertaking immigration enforcements
and require footage, in addition to ending roving patrols. The recent
tragedies confirm that neither of these commitments were honored.
As we underscored during the subsequent funding negotiations earlier
this year, implementing comprehensive accountability and oversight
reforms for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is
necessary both to protect the public and restore trust in the work of
your agency. Our reform proposals are based upon the standards
applicable to virtually every law enforcement agency in the country
(except immigration enforcement officers), including visibly displayed
identification, no masks, and body-worn cameras.
In recent weeks, federal agents have aggressively ramped up
enforcement operations, reportedly arresting thousands of immigrants in a
matter of days. Following the public backlash from these most recent
fatal shootings, your Department has once again committed to
distributing body-worn cameras, stating that every ICE arrest team will
have at least one law enforcement officer equipped with a camera going
forward and promising that all field offices will receive them within
the next 60 days. Acting ICE Director Venturella also went on the record
promising members of Congress that all field agents would be outfitted
by the end of July. We view this timeline not as a projection, but as a
firm, binding commitment to which we will hold the Department
accountable.
Furthermore, to strengthen public safety and minimize dangerous
operational confusion, we urge an immediate policy change regarding
agency branding. To help ensure clear accountability and avoid
misleading the public, ICE personnel engaged in interior enforcement
must immediately cease wearing tactical gear, vests, or uniforms labeled
with the generic term “POLICE” or “POLICEICE.” All operational uniforms
should explicitly and exclusively identify personnel as “ICE.” In
addition, agents should be required to identify themselves as “ICE” when
making arrests and uniforms must clearly be identified as “ICE.”
Finally, given the immediate need for administrative accountability
following these tragedies, we request detailed information in response
to the following questions:
What is DHS’s specific plan to respond to the public’s interest in
timely, transparent, and independently verified investigations into
these incidents?
What are the vetting procedures with respect to new ICE recruits?
Does ICE consider records of domestic violence and abuse from family
courts in its vetting?
What immediate updates or reviews are being made to ICE vehicle
pursuit and traffic stop policies, including enhanced training
specifically applicable to traffic stops to ensure they prioritize
public and officer safety?
Beyond the deployment of body-worn cameras, what additional
oversight, reporting requirements, or public safety measures is the
agency implementing?
We remain supportive of removing dangerous convicted criminals from
our communities, but this goal can and must be achieved without
endangering these very communities in the process. By no stretch could
either of the victims in Texas and Maine be characterized as “the worst
of the worst,” making these tragic deaths even more egregious. The
American people deserve clarity and accountability. We urge you to honor
your Department’s earlier commitments and take immediate action to
implement these necessary reforms. We also stand ready to work with you
to codify reforms into law.
We look forward to hearing from you at the earliest possible date.
