ICE Chief to Dem Congressman: Don't Trash Us... We're Obeying Your Laws!
As part of their visceral hatred for and opposition to President Donald Trump, many Democrats and the liberal media have pointed to his policy of actually enforcing existing immigration laws as evidence that he is “anti-immigrant” and “racist.”
As an extension of that, some Democrats have even gone so far as to smear the brave men and women who protect our border as being “anti-immigrant” and “racist” for doing the jobs they were hired to do, namely to enforce existing laws.
That sentiment was clearly on display Tuesday during a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing by Democrat California Rep. Nanette Barragan, according to the Washington Examiner.
Barragan engaged in a nearly four-minute-long virtue-signaling diatribe that lamented how tough it is for some illegal immigrants entering the country, while at the same time essentially demonizing the law enforcement agencies tasked with stopping such illegal entry into the country.
“We love to talk about this issue of MS-13 gangs. We love to paint immigrants as criminals. That is not the complete facts and that is very offensive for me to see continuing to happen,” Barragan stated sanctimoniously.
“It makes me sick to my stomach to keep hearing over and over again, painting the broad stroke and the picture as though these are folks who are coming here to do harm,” she added later.
Barragan eventually threw a couple of actual questions into her lengthy soliloquy, which were dutifully answered in a straight-forward manner by Customs and Border Patrol Protection’s acting deputy commissioner, Ronald Vitiello.
However, as Barragan concluded her speech and yielded the remainder of her time, Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asked for the opportunity to also respond to what she had said.
“First of all, no one on this panel is anti-immigrant. We’re law enforcement officers enforcing the laws that you all enacted,” Homan stated as he pointed at the members of Congress in attendance at the hearing.
“So to sit there and say that we’re anti-immigrant is wrong. We are enforcing laws,” he continued. “If you think it’s OK to enter this country illegally — you shouldn’t be arrested — that’s just wrong. The laws clearly state, ‘You enter here illegally, it is a crime.'”
“And no one’s up here saying all illegal aliens are criminals. A certain percentage of them certainly are criminals — they commit yet another offense after they’re here,” Homan clarified.
“I have said many times that I certainly understand the plight of these people and I feel bad for some of these people, but I have a job to do. I have to enforce the law and uphold the oath I took to enact the laws enacted by you in Congress,” he added emphatically.
Barragan, like so many other liberal and progressive Democrats, made it abundantly clear that she sides more with illegal immigrants than American citizens or the men and women of federal law enforcement whose job it is to defend and protect the nation by enforcing and upholding the laws that are on the books.
Homan was absolutely right to call out Barragan for her demonization of those men and women who are only enforcing existing laws that many Democrats previously voted to put in place.
If Democrats don’t like the laws already on the books, then they should work to change them legislatively.
What they should not do is smear the people tasked with enforcing those laws simply because they no longer approve of them.
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