Federal agents block people protesting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm in Ventura County, California, on July 10, 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A group of U.S. House Democrats on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s administration for what they called “cruelty” and “lawlessness” in carrying out mass deportations of migrants without legal status.

At a forum at the U.S. Capitol, Democrats who sit on the House Homeland Security Committee and others rebuked the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown and its impact on communities, bringing in prominent voices from immigration and legal advocacy groups and a U.S. Marine veteran who said his father was beaten by federal immigration officers.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, an Illinois Democrat, slammed the Department of Homeland Security, calling the agency “unaccountable.”

“They continue to break the law and bypass congressional authority to conceal the ways in which they are abusing (the) power of DHS to violate our rights, undermine due process and tear our communities apart,” she said.

“Under the Trump administration, DHS is an out-of-control, abusive terror force that disregards law, rejects accountability and tramples on the very foundations of our Constitution,” Ramirez added.

Rep. Troy Carter, a Louisiana Democrat and committee member, said “like many Americans, I’m deeply troubled by the cruel and profoundly un-American mass deportation agenda being undertaken by Donald Trump and his allies.”

“These harsh policies are not about public safety or border security — we have seen children torn from their parents, a flagrant disregard for basic due process protections and individuals targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights,” he said.

“Congress must uphold the rights of all people in the United States. We need immigration policy rooted in dignity, fairness and due process, not cruelty and authoritarianism.”

$170B for immigration enforcement

The forum came less than three weeks after Trump signed a massive tax and spending cut bill into law that provides roughly $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement.

NPR reported Monday that DHS is preparing to use military bases in New Jersey and Indiana to detain immigrants who unlawfully entered the United States.

“What is happening right now is just plain wrong,” Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said. “We’re all for immigration enforcement and smart border security, but the targeting of innocent people who are just trying to work hard and make a living, the targeting of the elderly, of the sick, of U.S. citizens, of students by an anonymous army of masked men is not who we are as a country.”

‘Violently attacked and detained’

Alejandro Barranco, a Marine veteran, said his father, an immigrant who does not have legal status, was “violently attacked and detained by federal immigration agents” in Orange County, California.

Barranco said his father, a landscaper, was working in June when masked men approached and quickly surrounded him and did not identify themselves or present any warrant.

He said his father was terrified and ran.

“They chased him through the parking lot and into a crowded street,” Barranco said. “They pointed guns at him, pepper-sprayed him. They tackled him to the ground and kicked him. They restrained and handcuffed him. They dragged him into an unmarked vehicle and pushed him into the back seat. As many have already seen, while several agents were holding him down, another beat him repeatedly in the neck and head area, over and over and over again.”

Barranco depicted the brutal conditions his father endured while in federal custody and said it’s been a nightmare for his family since his father was detained.

Barranco said that while his father was eventually released on bond, “the trauma that day and the brokenness of this system remains in our hearts, and we are still under a cloud.”

Masked agents

The Trump administration also faced scrutiny from the panel over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing masks during immigration raids. 

Jesse Franzblau, associate director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said ICE agents wearing masks with no identifying information is not proper, but “quite dangerous” and “puts everyone further at risk.”

“I mean, we’ve seen people impersonating ICE, wearing masks and saying that they’re ICE and then carrying out abuses against other people,” Franzblau said, adding that “it puts communities at more risk when you have masked agents, federal agents that should be identifying themselves, going into communities and carrying out sweeping operations like this.”

DHS response

In a statement shared with States Newsroom on Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the department, said: “How many Americans have to die because of illegal immigration for Democrats to give a damn about actual American citizens?”

“Democrat politicians should stop defending criminal illegal aliens and exploiting law enforcement for their 15 minutes of fame and start working with President Trump and (Homeland Security) Secretary (Kristi) Noem to keep Americans safe.”

In a Tuesday press release, the department defended ICE, saying the agency has targeted the “worst of the worst” during immigration arrests.

To mark six months since Trump took office on Sunday, the department touted a long list of its actions, including on immigration enforcement and border security.

The agency described the list as “victories” in Trump’s and Noem’s “mission to secure the homeland and Make America Safe Again,” including record low numbers of illegal border crossings.

Left to right, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are sworn in before the start of a hearing with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the U.S. Capitol on June 12, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Three Democratic governors from states that leave immigration enforcement to the federal government said Thursday they oppose President Donald Trump’s decision to send more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines into Los Angeles without the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The lengthy and tense U.S. House hearing where the trio appeared — highlighted by a shouting match among members and accusations of Nazi tactics — came as the nation’s capital prepared for a major military parade and Trump’s birthday Saturday, along with thousands of “No Kings” protests across the country.

In Los Angeles, a U.S. senator was tackled and removed from an immigration press conference by federal law enforcement agents accompanying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The governors, whose states have submitted an amicus brief to a lawsuit by Newsom challenging Trump, said the decisions to bring in the military should be made by local officials.

“It’s wrong to deploy the National Guard and active-duty Marines into an American city over the objection of local law enforcement, just to inflame a situation and create a crisis, just as it’s wrong to tear children away from their homes and their mothers and fathers, who have spent decades living and working in our communities, raising their families,” Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

The hearing with Govs. Pritzker, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Kathy Hochul of New York marked the second time House Republicans have called in leaders in blue states that have policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration officials in enforcement efforts. Those policies do not bar immigration enforcement from occurring.

Republicans brought in the mayors of Boston, Chicago and Denver in March.

The eight-hour hearing came after multi-day protests in Los Angeles sparked when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began widespread immigration raids at Home Depots in their communities in an effort to carry out the president’s mass deportation efforts.

The governors stressed that the president’s decision to send in the National Guard set a dangerous precedent and posed a threat to democracy.

Republicans on the committee defended the president’s actions and instead accused the governors of violating federal law because of their state policies, dubbed as “sanctuary cities.” Immigration policy is handled by the federal government and states and localities are not required to coordinate with officials.

Shouting match over Noem

More than four hours into the hearing, video circulated of California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla being forcibly removed and handcuffed by Secret Service agents while trying to ask a question of Noem during a press conference in LA.

Democrats on the panel, such as Arizona Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari, slammed the video and raised concerns that a “sitting senator was shoved to the ground.”

It led to a shouting match, with Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost asking the chair of the panel, James Comer of Kentucky, if the committee would subpoena Noem.

Comer said Frost was out of order and tried to move on.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was next in line for questioning, heckled Frost and said that Democrats “can’t follow the rules.” Comer eventually told Frost to “shut up.”

Pritzker said that he could not “believe the disrespect that was shown to a United States senator” who was trying to ask Noem a question.

“That seems completely irrational,” Pritzker said.

Democrats on the panel such as Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez and Dan Goldman of New York called for Noem to appear before the committee.

“Anyone with two eyes that can see, can see that was authoritarian, lawless behavior that no person in America, much less a senator conducting congressional oversight, should receive,” Goldman said.

‘People are living in fear’

The Democratic governors defended their immigration policies and criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, pointing to ICE officers wearing face coverings to arrest immigrants.

“People are living in fear in the shadows,” Hochul said. “People can’t go to school, they can’t worship, they can’t go get health care. They can’t go to their senior center. What is happening has been traumatic.”

Several Republicans including Reps. Comer, Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, took issue with comments by Walz at a commencement speech in May, in which he accused the president of turning ICE agents into a modern-day Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany.

Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri said that Walz should apologize.

Walz said that as a former history teacher, he was making an observation about ICE tactics — such as wearing a face covering to arrest people — that were similar to those used by secret police.

The top Democrat on the panel, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, defended Walz’s statement, and said that ICE is operating like a modern-day Gestapo.

Lynch pointed to the video of the international Tufts University student who was approached by masked men on the street and taken into a van for writing an op-ed in defense of Palestinian human rights.  

“ICE agents wearing masks and hoodies detained Rümeysa Öztürk and those of you who watched that, that abduction, when you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that student, that graduate student, it does look like a Gestapo operation,” Lynch said.