Democrat blasts immigration officials as modern-day ‘slave patrol’

Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois scorched the earth Tuesday during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing with the heads of three major immigration agencies. 

"Chairman, my mother, a Guatemalan immigrant and an American, taught me that I have the responsibility to look evil in the eye and to fight it back," Ramirez said. 

She then delivered a detailed accounting of the civil rights violations, civil liberties abuses, and crimes perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security and its fascistic Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations across the country.

Ramirez punctuated this torrent of facts by rejecting claims that Immigration officials and agents are the true victims of public scrutiny:

You would both have us talk about respect for your mission and your agents, but your agencies are unaccountable paramilitary forces, and I have just as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Those activities were immoral then, and criminal—and so are yours.

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Rep. Delia Ramirez to DHS officials: "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Those activities were criminal and so are yours." pic.twitter.com/xeXMgRf3FO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2026

Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, faced a Democratic barrage amid growing calls to abolish ICE. Their efforts—alongside the Republican Party—to portray immigration enforcement officials as victims rang hollow to lawmakers who detailed the terror and brutality inflicted on American residents under the Trump administration.

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