Senate Democrat: Americans should be ‘terrified’ by ‘secret ICE policy’ the hill
Sen.
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday said Americans should be “terrified” of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) potentially violating constitutional rights.
An
internal memo, obtained by The Associated Press, unveiled that ICE is asserting
broad authority in its operations, sometimes entering homes without obtaining a warrant from a judge.
“It is a blatant, craven violation of the Fourth Amendment — a bedrock protection for people in the privacy of their homes,” Blumenthal said during a Thursday appearance on CNN’s “
News Central.”
“Americans should be terrified that this secret ICE policy authorizes agents to break down doors and ransack through their homes, arresting or detaining people without a judicial warrant,” he continued.
“This kind of entering and breaking into people’s homes without any judicial oversight or approval has to be stopped and it will take probably my Republicans stepping up and showing that their valuing human rights really means something in practice, not just in rhetoric,” the Connecticut Democrat added.
Blumenthal joins a chorus of Democrats in
condemning tactics used by immigration enforcement officers in multiple states across the country. Sen.
Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
recently described ICE’s behavior as “inhumane” and “illegal.”
“Of course, you need a domestic enforcement mechanism for the immigration laws of this country, but the way in which ICE is operating today is inhumane and illegal,” Murphy said earlier this month in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“They rounded up a 16-year-old kid in Meriden, Conn., weeks before he was about to graduate, in the country legally, put him in detention for six months,” he added.
On Tuesday, ICE
detained a 5-year-old boy and his father in Minnesota after the boy came home from preschool.
Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz (D) weighed in on the incident Thursday after weeks of increased
immigration enforcement operations across the North Star State.
“Minnesotans want safety,” Walz
wrote on social platform X. “They want freedom. They want what’s best for our kids.”
“Masked agents snatching preschoolers off the street and sending them to Texas detention centers serves none of those purposes,” he continued. “This campaign of retribution has got to stop.”
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