Rep. Jayapal defends comment calling ICE 'a terrorist force,' says White House 'owes an apology' to Americans
During an interview with Brianna Keilar on "CNN News Central," the host spoke to Jayapal about her Tuesday Instagram post where she wrote that "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 asked Jayapal to respond to a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, which was obtained by Fox News Digital.
In the statement, Jackson said, "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."
"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," Jackson added.
Jayapal responded, "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."
"I never in a million years thought that that is something that I would see here in America," she added. "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 called ICE's immigration enforcement "outrageous," "unconstitutional," and "illegal."
"It is absolutely terrorizing people, including small businesses, farmers," Jayapal said. "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."
Border czar Tom Homan brought up attacks on ICE agents on Monday during an appearance on "The Will Cain Show" where he also criticized a new app called ICEBlock that is reportedly being used to track ICE agents.
"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."
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