By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Two of Queens\u2019 longest-serving members of Congress sharply criticized the Trump administration\u2019s immigration enforcement on Thursday, but stopped short of joining fellow Democrats calling for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
At a press conference at Borough Hall Thursday, Democratic Representatives Gregory Meeks and Grace Meng called for more \u201caccountability\u201d for DHS, but wouldn\u2019t go as far as others who have called for the full abolition of ICE, whose agents have killed two people in Minneapolis in the past several weeks. <\/p>\n
Both representatives, who last week voted against increasing DHS funding, said that the \u201cpower of the purse\u201d and increased regulations are the answer to reigning in ICE. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf ICE goes by the mission that it has had previously, where you’re looking to get individuals who are illegal and have committed a crime, especially violent crimes, then those individuals are who ICE should be targeting,” Meeks said when asked if he was in favor of abolishing ICE. \u201cThat’s what was talked about.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meng, who is preparing to bring forward legislation that would force ICE agents to wear clear identification, said addressing ICE\u2019s alleged abuses goes deeper than a \u201ctwo-word slogan.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cICE as it is, cannot exist,\u201d she said. \u201cThat’s why [Meeks] and I, and most of the Democratic caucus, voted against funding at this time, because we believe that there are changes that have to be made. There need to be guardrails. There needs to be more transparency and accountability.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to prioritize public safety [and] community safety over militarization,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Meng and Meeks voted against funding DHS along with all but seven House Democrats \u2013 a group that included Queens Rep. Tom Suozzi. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet’s not fund them until they change,\u201d said Meeks.<\/p>\n
That power now ultimately lies with the Senate, who on Friday were in the throes of a potential government shutdown fight centered around whether or not DHS should be included in the pivotal funding package. <\/p>\n
Unlike Meeks and Meng, Borough President Donovan Richards called for the abolition of ICE during Thursday\u2019s press conference alongside the congressional representatives. <\/p>\n
\u201cI’ll go a little further than our congressmembers, because I can say it, we have to abolish ICE,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can’t fix what they’re doing.\u201d <\/p>\n
In his remarks, Richards referred to ICE as both the \u201cAmerican Taliban,\u201d and the \u201cGestapo.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is in its current form, it needs to be torn down from the ground up and built back up to what it was supposed to be,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Meeks described Trump\u2019s immigration policies as \u201cauthoritarian,\u201d and agreed with another speaker who compared ICE\u2019s enforcement to Nazi Germany. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen individuals came busting out of cars with masks on, breaking out doors and indiscriminately taking people into custody\u2026history shows that did take place in Nazi Germany,\u201d said Meeks, the leader of the Queens County Democratic Party. <\/p>\n
Some of Meeks and Meng\u2019s congressional colleagues in Queens, including Reps. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called for ICE to be abolished. <\/p>\n
\u201cCongress cannot continue to fund this rogue agency,\u201d Vel\u00e1zquez said following the ICE killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also called for the end to ICE, which was established in 2002 following the Sept. 11 terror attack. <\/p>\n
During the Thursday press conference, officials said that while ICE hasn\u2019t made its presence as known in New York City as it has in Minneapolis, sporadic enforcement actions have taken place throughout the five boroughs, including in Queens. <\/p>\n
\u201cQueens might not look occupied like Minneapolis, but the mental and emotional scars our families bear are just the same,\u201d Richards said. \u201cAnybody who doesn’t believe ICE is here, we get the reports.\u201d <\/p>\n
Vanessa Ordonez, the director of immigrant affairs in Richards\u2019 office said that ICE sightings are common across the borough\u2019s immigrant communities. <\/p>\n
\u201cBasically any immigrant hub that you can imagine in New York City, that’s where they’re at,\u201d she said. \u201cWe’ve seen them in Bayside, Sunnyside, Woodside, you name it, Jamaica, by the Home Depot. Anywhere there’s an immigrant hub, they’re there.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Two of Queens\u2019 longest-serving members of Congress sharply criticized the Trump administration\u2019s immigration enforcement on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-120122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}