Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., defended her controversial remarks describing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a “terrorist force,” following sharp criticism from the White House and others.
In a Wednesday interview on CNN’s News Central with Brianna Keilar, Jayapal was asked to explain an Instagram post she had shared a day earlier. In that post, Jayapal claimed, “ICE is acting like a terrorist force. People across the country of all legal statuses — including U.S. citizens — are being kidnapped and disappeared off the street by masked men. No oversight, no accountability. Completely lawless.”
Keilar questioned Jayapal specifically about a statement issued by White House press secretary Abigail Jackson, which was provided to Fox News Digital.
Jackson responded forcefully to Jayapal’s accusations, writing, “Jayapal’s disgusting comments warrant an immediate apology. Heroic ICE officers are simply doing their jobs and enforcing federal immigration law, with the utmost professionalism.”
She added, “Dangerous smears by deranged leftists like Jayapal radicalize their supporters to violently attack and obstruct federal law enforcement. Because of comments like Jayapal’s, assaults against ICE agents have increased by 500% this year. And that number will go even higher if Jayapal doesn’t stop with her smears.”
Jayapal rejected those assertions, stating, “What is deranged and cruel and outrageous is that, literally, we are seeing ICE agents, I assume they‘re ICE agents. They say they are. They don‘t have any identification. They‘re wearing masks. They‘re in plain clothes. They are coming and kidnapping and disappearing people on the streets of the United States.”
She continued by saying, “I never in a million years thought that that is something that I would see here in America. And so I think it is the administration that has to apologize to U.S. citizens that have been rounded up to legal, permanent residents, to people with legal statuses across the country who are getting swept up, people who have been here for 20 years and committed no crimes, getting swept up by masked men who are kidnaping them and deporting them.”
Jayapal doubled down on her critique, labeling ICE enforcement operations as “outrageous,” “unconstitutional,” and “illegal.”
She further stated, “It is absolutely terrorizing people, including small businesses, farmers. The round table I had in Spokane was with people from the Growers League, farmers who are terrified, restaurant owners who can‘t have, you know, who are seeing their sales go down because nobody wants to come out and eat. Literally. People are so afraid, Brianna. It‘s never something I thought I would see in the United States of America. The White House owes an apology to the American people for what they are doing.”
Meanwhile, concerns about safety for ICE officers continue to grow. Tom Homan, a key border policy figure, addressed the surge in violence against agents on Monday during an interview on The Will Cain Show. He also spoke out against a new tracking app reportedly called ICEBlock, which alerts users to ICE operations.
“Assault against ICE is up over 500%,” Homan said. “Now you’ve got an app that’s going to tell where ICE operations are going to. It’s only a matter of time before ICE agents are ambushed by some nut, like what happened in L.A., throwing them out a cocktail, throwing bricks at these officers. This is just disgusting at every level.”
{Matzav.com}