Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons complained in his opening remarks to the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday morning that people refer to ICE agents as the “Gestapo” and “secret police,” saying such rhetoric unfairly encourages threats against the agents.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) offered Lyon some revolutionary advice.
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“People just made a valid observation about your tactics, which are un-American and downright fascist,” he said.
“I have a simple suggestion,” he continued: “If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or a secret police, stop acting like a fascist regime or a secret police.”
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In an earlier conversation with Lyons, Goldman noted that ICE often blocks “non-whites and those who look like immigrants from requesting documents” — a hallmark of fascist regimes in the 20th century.
Lyons acknowledged that the secret police of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did the same thing, but argued unconvincingly that “the men and women of ICE were the Gestapo…” [is] Wrong. “
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Earlier in the hearing, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Lyons how he wished last year there was an eviction machine “like Amazon Prime, but with people.”
“Mr. Lyons, how many times did an Amazon Prime member shoot a mom in the face three times?” he asked, referring to the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last month.
“No, sir,” Lyons admitted, adding that he meant ICE “needs to be more efficient” and that “ICE deals with human beings, so we can’t be like them.”
“Speaking of humans,” Swalwell interjected, highlighting the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis: “Amazon Prime shot a nurse in the back 10 times, how many times?”
“No,” Lyons said.
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