{"id":463147,"date":"2026-02-12T00:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463147\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:16:21","slug":"congress-showed-ice-leaders-images-of-ice-brutality-their-response-was-telling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463147\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress showed ICE leaders images of ICE brutality. Their response was telling."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

After months of watching federal agents terrorize communities all across the country in the name of immigration enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s top brass sat before Congress on Tuesday to answer questions about the deaths of Ren\u00e9e Nicole Good<\/a> and Alex Pretti<\/a>, the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos<\/a>, and the fates of countless others who have been caught in the crosshairs of the president\u2019s mass deportation effort. Though Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, mostly deflected any responsibility and insisted that the agency conducts only targeted arrests, Democrats came prepared with receipts to remind us all just how blatantly racist and out of control the White House\u2019s immigration agenda has been.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are only here because public outrage has become so unavoidable,\u201d Rep. LaMonica McIver, of New Jersey, said during the House Homeland Security Committee\u2019s oversight hearing. McIver is being prosecuted<\/a> by the Trump administration over an incident in New Jersey when she was barred from entering a detention facility. \u201cYou are here, Mr. Lyons, because white people are getting shot in the face and chest when the cameras are rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyons remained straight-faced, offering no explanation for his agents\u2019 extreme use of force or denial about his agents\u2019 racial profiling of Americans. That profiling is something the Supreme Court essentially endorsed<\/a> last year, after the justices issued a decision allowing the federal government to stop Hispanic migrants based on their \u201capparent ethnicity,\u201d as well as other factors, like if they have an accent or work certain types of jobs. This, predictably, has led ICE to overwhelmingly target Black and brown Americans<\/a> with excessive force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this was one of the main subtexts of the hearing. New Jersey Rep. Nellie Pou, for example, asked, \u201cMr. Lyons, I speak Spanish. If I wasn\u2019t wearing my member pin, would me being a Latina and speaking Spanish be enough for ICE agents to harass me or shove me into one of your unmarked cars?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyons answered no, but as Pou and other Democratic representatives pointed out, this has not been borne out by the reality on the ground; even off-duty officers have recently been profiled by ICE. When Rep. Troy Carter, of Louisiana, directly asked Lyons if his agency was arresting or deporting Americans, Lyons denied that it was \u201carresting\u201d Americans, before quickly adding that it did \u201cdetain\u201d Americans. As Carter pointed out, this was a distinction without a difference.<\/p>\n

When it came to the way agents currently present themselves to Americans, New York Rep. Tim Kennedy asked whether Lyons would instruct his agents to no longer wear masks and institute a uniform that includes visible identification\u2014one of 10 demands congressional Democrats are requesting in the ongoing negotiations over whether to fund DHS beyond Saturday\u2019s deadline. Lyons immediately retorted, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when Rep. Eric Swalwell, of California, asked Lyons if he would apologize for his department calling Good and Pretti \u201cdomestic terrorists,\u201d he refused. Lyons also insisted that when his agents arrested Ramos as he made his way home from preschool with his father, \u201cthe men and women of ICE took care of him.\u201d Later in the hearing, Lyons also claimed that agents played the boy\u2019s favorite song and got him McDonald\u2019s. Meanwhile, it took the intervention of Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro for a visibly unwell Ramos to be released from detention. The administration immediately tried to detain him again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was just one of many moments when administration officials offered what felt like a completely different reality from what people on the ground are experiencing with ICE officers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
\n A Lawyer for ICE Broke Down in Court. It\u2019s the Sound of the System Collapsing.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Rep. Seth Magaziner, of Rhode Island, brought up the case<\/a> of federal agents in Chicago, who pepper-sprayed a 1-year-old as she sat in the back seat of her father\u2019s car. \u201cIs it proper procedure to aim pepper spray into the window of a moving vehicle?\u201d Magaziner asked Rodney Scott, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who also testified. \u201cWe try to avoid that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Magaziner continued to push. \u201cWere any of your agents investigated or disciplined for this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have to get back to you,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

Congress Showed ICE Leaders Images of ICE Brutality. The Response Was Telling.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Activists Are Fighting ICE Even Though It Could Get Them Killed. Here\u2019s Why.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Magaziner then showed a video and zoomed-in photo<\/a> of an agent firing pepper spray directly into the face of a protester who was pinned to the ground by multiple agents and asked if this was proper procedure for the use of pepper spray. \u201cI cannot respond to that because you\u2019re only showing one piece, and that subject is clearly not compliant,\u201d Scott said, while refusing to confirm whether there was an open investigation into those agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour agency has been repeatedly caught on tape using violence against civilians, and you can\u2019t even tell me if any of these agents have been investigated or disciplined,\u201d Magaziner said. \u201cYou are supposed to be making people safer, and instead your agents are being unnecessarily violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s hearing was the first time ICE leadership has testified before Congress under the second Trump administration, as the White House agreed to the testimony in a clear attempt to contain the fallout from Good\u2019s and Pretti\u2019s deaths. Though it will not immediately solve the current chaos being wreaked by the president and his mass deportation mastermind Stephen Miller, the hearing did serve as a cathartic moment of rage. For a brief period of time, Democrats accurately embodied the feelings of Americans all across the country who are facing ICE in their communities with no real defense.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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