Congressman Jamie Raskin got right to the point in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as he sought an answer to a question several Democratic lawmakers have raised in recent months regarding the Trump administration’s recruiting practices as it seeks to flood American communities with immigration officers.
“How many pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have been hired by your respective departments?” Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the two officials.
The congressman wrote to Bondi and Noem as video evidence continues to mount of federal agents’ violent tactics in communities across the US following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent’s fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good last week.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Raskin, “seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists.”
He pointed to “white nationalist ‘dog whistles’” it’s used in its recruitment campaigns that appear to target members of “extremist militias” like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.
Potential ICE recruits have been bombarded by messages from DHS calling on them to help “defend the homeland” and images like one of a white Uncle Sam caricature standing at a crossroads with signs pointing one way—labeled “INVASION” and “CULTURAL DECLINE”—and another, labeled “HOMELAND” and “LAW AND ORDER.” The image and caption appeared to be a reference to the white nationalist text Which Way, Western Man? by William Gayley Simpson.
The groups and militias apparently being targeted by the recruitment push coordinated with one another on January 6, 2021 as their members and leaders were among those who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop former President Joe Biden’s electoral victory from being certified.
One of President Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office last year was pardoning more than 1,500 people convicted of participating in the attempted insurrection, and dozens of them have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes including child sexual assault, possession of child pornography, and domestic violence.
Other Democratic lawmakers have previously raised alarm about the lax hiring requirements DHS has put in place as it seeks to grow its ranks of ICE agents, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noting in an October letter to Noem that in its push to hire more so-called “patriots,” ICE has “changed the age requirements for new recruits.”
“DHS announced that applicants now can apply at the age of 18 and there is no age cap. ICE also removed its Spanish-language requirement—shortening the training program by five weeks—and is pursuing additional ways to expedite training,” wrote Durbin. “The loosening of hiring standards and training requirements is unacceptable and will likely result in increased officer misconduct—similar to or worse than what occurred during a small surge in hiring US Customs and Border Protection officers in the early 2000s.”
On Monday, Raskin pointed out that ICE agents have been permitted to go to great lengths to hide their identities with masks as they’ve tackled people to the ground, “detained and battered multiple pregnant women,” threatened people and confiscated their cellphones for filming them—a protected activity under the First Amendment—and rammed open the door of a home in Minneapolis as they apparently began “door-to-door” operations.
“Unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services, ICE agents conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms. Why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers, and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all routinely work unmasked while ICE agents work masked?” wrote Raskin.
“Who is hiding behind these masks?” he continued. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this administration.”
He demanded the release of records related to the solicitation or hiring of anyone charged or investigated for participating in the January 6 attack.
Raskin’s letter was sent as independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on leaked documents showing that ICE and Border Patrol officials on the ground are struggling to cope with both staffing and legal compliance issues following Good’s killing.
“While Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and others in the administration preen about justifying last week’s shooting and trumpet their war on ‘domestic terrorism,’ DHS is privately divided and hesitant about the latest deployments,” wrote Klippenstein, detailing efforts within the agency to find around 300 volunteers to deploy in Minneapolis, “in part due to opposition within the ranks.”
Following DHS’ aggressive recruiting push that appears to designed to appeal to extremist militias, “there might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolás Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation,” a high-ranking career official at DHS told Klippenstein. “There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around.”
Officials are reportedly pushing to rein in the agents whom the Trump administration has unleashed on communities including Minneapolis, where ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good while she was sitting in her car after she had reportedly been given conflicting orders by officers.
While Trump has suggested Good was to blame for her killing because she was “disrespectful” to the officers and videos have surfaced of agents attacking and threatening people for filming and observing them, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino sent a “legal refresher” to agents in the field, reminding them that protesters who use profanity, insults, and rude gestures are not breaking any laws.
Noncompliance with law enforcement and recordings of ICE agents are protected activities, the document reminds officers.
Sarah Saldaña, a former director of ICE, also recently said that DHS’ decision to frame its recruiting push as a “war effort” would inevitably result in a federal anti-immigration force that views itself as being at war with the communities it’s sent to.
DHS is promoting a viewpoint among recruits that “the quicker we get out there and run over people, the better off this country will be,” Saldaña told the Washington Postdays before Good was killed. “That mentality you’re fostering tends to inculcate in people a certain aggressiveness that may not be necessary in 85% of what you do.”
A DHS official who spoke to Klippenstein said that “the claim is that recruiting is up, but there is also dread that the gung-ho types that ICE and the Border Patrol are bringing in have a propensity towards confrontation and even violence.”