Washington, Jan 9 (.) An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer’s fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday has triggered mounting tensions in Capitol Hill, with Democrats expressing outrage over both the killing, and the defence provided by the GOP over the agency’s actions.
Tensions boiled over on the House floor, where a shouting match broke out between Angie Craig, the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, and Tom Emmer, the Republican majority whip.
A video shared with Axios shows the two lawmakers arguing loudly for roughly 40 seconds before Betty McCollum stepped in and escorted Craig away.
According to sources briefed on the exchange, Craig accused Republicans of staging political theatrics around immigration enforcement in Minnesota that “got a woman killed.” Emmer, who had publicly defended the ICE officers involved, angrily told Craig to “take a walk,” the sources said.
The incident has inflamed Democratic lawmakers, many of whom have accused the agency of becoming increasingly reckless, and aggressive, with little unaccountability.
“Certainly everyone in that room, at least on my side, is livid at what happened to this woman,” said Delia Ramirez, gesturing toward the House chamber.
She stressed that the victim was “a US citizen… a 37-year-old white woman,” adding, “and then they lied about it.”
Several Democrats are now openly discussing drastic measures to force changes at ICE.
Ramirez is among those who have floated the possibility of using the threat of a government shutdown to restrict funding for the agency — a sign of how far frustration has escalated, even as party leaders remain wary of such a move.
Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused ICE of operating beyond its mandate. “They’re disappearing people off the street, and this has nothing to do with citizenship at all, increasingly, in who they’re going after,” she said.
The most aggressive response came from Robin Kelly, who announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
“Secretary Kristi Noem is an incompetent leader, a disgrace to our democracy, and I am impeaching her for obstruction of justice, violation of public trust, and self-dealing,” Kelly said in a statement, and issued an unrelenting scathing criticism of Kelly.
“It’s one thing to be incompetent and dangerous, but it’s impeachable to break the rule of law,” she added. “I told my constituents … that I would fight against Secretary Noem’s agenda. This is me fighting back.”
“How silly during a serious time. As ICE officers are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, Rep. Kelly is more focused on showmanship and fundraising clicks than actually cleaning up her crime-ridden Chicago district,” a DHS spokesperson said Thursday evening.
“We hope she would get serious about doing her job to protect American people, which is what this Department is doing under Secretary Noem.”
Despite the unanimous outrage, there are some lingering differences among Democrats regarding how to approach the issue, as some lawmakers are starting to make serious noise about using the threat of a government shutdown to force substantive changes at ICE, underscoring the anger in the party, despite the threat of govt shutdown not being on the party’s roster.
Stating that the mere issuance of letters and statements was not enough anymore, the anger of some of the lawmakers had put them on a collision course with party leaders, as they had threatened another govt shutdown, which is something that Democrats – while discussing – have not agreed on as of now.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had earlier this week confirmed that a shutdown was not on the table.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, if the appropriations process should be used to constrain ICE, told Axios on Jan 7, “We’re focused right now on … advancing the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
. . CDS