{"id":144565,"date":"2026-01-30T21:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/144565\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T21:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:24:08","slug":"texas-congresswoman-promises-tough-questions-when-leader-of-ice-testifies-before-her-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/144565\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Congresswoman promises tough questions when leader of ICE testifies before her committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Representative Julie Johnson says Democrats will not face political fallout for trying to change ICE tactics, including via a funding threat.<\/p>\n

DALLAS \u2014 After weeks of mounting tension and clashes between residents and federal immigration agents in Minneapolis that culminated in the fatal shootings of two American citizens, President Donald Trump promised to de-escalate the situation and look into reducing the number of agents in the city<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-32nd District, who sits on the committee that will soon hold hearings on ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) tactics, says the President has to do something in Minneapolis as Americans watch the carnage unfold in their own country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis escalation of tensions by ICE terrorizing the citizenry of Minnesota is just unacceptable. You can\u2019t have these rogue gangs of masked men going into daycares and just shooting and killing and executing American citizens on the streets of this country. So, something needs to happen,\u201d the lawmaker told us on Inside Texas Politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Congresswoman Johnson is the Vice Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

On February 10, the leaders of ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will all testify before that committee, with a focus on their leadership and the tactics being used in Minneapolis and other American cities.<\/p>\n

Johnson expects accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to come and report to Congress. It\u2019s our job. They want us to give them money to do their job, right? We control the powers of the purse, so they have an obligation to come. It\u2019s long overdue,\u201d said the Democrat. \u201cIt\u2019s really unfortunate that it took the execution of a Minnesota resident to get them to come to testify before Congress, that it took the killing of an American citizen for them to come and hold their agency accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The battle over ICE tactics has also spilled into the debate over the federal budget. Government funding runs out on January 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While lawmakers have made progress on most funding bills, Democrats now say they won\u2019t approve any funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, until changes are made. Senate Democrats and the White House recently announced a deal to keep the government open, with DHS funding taken up in a separate vote.<\/p>\n

Some Democrats are demanding that ICE agents take off their masks and face coverings, begin wearing body cameras, and have more legal justification before entering the homes of private citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a complete de-escalation of these, of this personnel, to get out of these roaming gangs of people just driving around in random pickup trucks through cities in some vigilante mission. I think this whole effort needs to be scaled back. These people need to be terminated from ICE. And we need to cease this, these types of programs immediately, and they need to focus back on the core mission of our actual ports of entry and that sort of thing,\u201d Johnson argued.<\/p>\n

Johnson also doesn\u2019t think the move to change ICE will hurt Democrats politically, as the \u201cdefund the police\u201d movement did in years past.<\/p>\n

She says her office has had thousands of interactions with constituents demanding that they stop what ICE is doing, including taking away the agency\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people are over it, and they\u2019re not happy with it. This is not what people want. This is not how our government should function. And I think that we\u2019re on the right side of this issue,\u201d the Congresswoman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Representative Julie Johnson says Democrats will not face political fallout for trying to change ICE tactics, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-144565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}