Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett on “The Breakfast Club” Friday compared U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “slave patrols” amid reports of a sharp rise in assaults against agents.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE officers are facing a 1,000% increase in assaults while conducting operations. On the radio show, Crockett described ICE as a “rogue policing force,” arguing that people would recognize the similarity to “slave patrols” if they were familiar with black history.
“[W]e’re seeing that they are unleashing this rogue policing force that if they taught black history, they would know about slave patrols. Because when I look at what they are doing with ICE, it looks like slave patrols,” Crockett said. “And then you’ve got a Supreme Court that’s like, ‘Yeah, you can pick them up because of how they look or how they sound.’”
“That sounds like a slave patrol,” she added. “Like, that is what policing was born of. So yes, we need to teach history.”
The Supreme Court recently granted the Trump administration’s request to lift restrictions on Los Angeles immigration raids.
President Donald Trump’s administration had asked the justices in August to block a district court judge’s order that barred immigration officers from considering race, location, type of work, or whether someone spoke Spanish when conducting stops. The administration argued that the judge should not “micromanage” immigration enforcement, particularly in areas where one in ten residents is undocumented.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — all appointed by Democratic presidents — dissented.
“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job,” Sotomayor wrote. “Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
ICE is currently carrying out federal immigration operations in Massachusetts and Chicago. Previously, the Trump administration conducted successful large-scale crackdowns on undocumented migrants in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Crockett has repeatedly argued against criminal penalties for illegal entry. On “The Katie Phang Show” in March, she claimed, “it is not a criminal violation to enter the country illegally … it’s not a crime.” White House border czar Tom Homan criticized her remarks on Fox Business’ “Varney & Co.”
“It’s a crime to enter the country illegally under Title 8 United States Code 1325, and it’s really pathetic that any member of Congress [doesn’t] understand what the law says,” Homan told host Stuart Varney. “They wrote the law, they enacted the law, [it’s] signed by a president. It is a criminal violation to enter the country illegally. And if you’ve entered prior, it’s a felony.”
Crockett also sparked controversy during a Wednesday House Judiciary Committee markup by dismissing Kayla Hamilton — an autistic woman murdered at age 20 by an illegal immigrant — as a “random dead” person.
The committee was reviewing the Kayla Hamilton Act, aimed at tightening regulations on some placements of unaccompanied alien children. Hamilton’s killer entered the U.S. illegally as a minor during the Biden administration.
“[S]top playing these games and acting like you care about one particular situation. You take a situation and then you exploit what has happened to not only that person, but you exploit those families and you make it a game!” Crockett said.
“Stop just throwing a random dead person’s name on something for your own political expediency!”