The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is pushing back on Democrats’ plan to track the activity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles.
“Oversight Committee Democrats are completely unhinged,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal on Wednesday.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are preparing to launch a platform that they say will track the activity of some ICE agents.
“Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the Oversight Committee will be launching on their website, a master ICE tracker, where we’re going to be essentially tracking every single instance that we can verify that the community will be able to send us information on, and it’ll be all available in one central place,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the committee.
Speaking alongside Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Karen Bass at a Tuesday press conference, Garcia said the committee is “going to record and create an investigative unit here to ensure that in Los Angeles, we look into every single brutal misconduct that ICE is committing.”
Garcia added that the aim of the platform is to “ensuring that every single moment of terror, of injustice that happens here in Los Angeles—and, really, across the country—is recorded and that we take note of every instance where people are being harmed.”
In response to the news, the Republican-controlled Oversight Committee called the move “weaponization.”
“Democrats shut down the government—leaving essential federal workers unpaid—just to push their extreme agenda of giving free health care to illegal immigrants. Now, they’re doubling down with a so-called ‘master’ ICE tracker designed to target and undermine lawful immigration enforcement,” Comer said. “Let’s be clear: This is a reckless assault on law enforcement that endangers ICE agents and compromises public safety.”
Garcia did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the plan to launch the ICE tracker “looks like obstruction of justice.”
In response to the announcement, Attorney General Pam Bondi castigated Garcia for “trying to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”
The Justice Department “has ZERO tolerance for violence against law enforcement,” she said.
“We will prosecute any person who physically assaults our agents,” Bondi said.
ICE has been carrying out targeted operation in Los Angeles since June as part of a wider campaign to detain and deport criminal illegal aliens across the country.
Since the start of the Trump administration in January, the DHS has arrested 480,000 criminal illegal aliens, according to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Among those arrested, 70% have “criminal charges against them or have been convicted of those criminal charges,” Noem said.
The increase in targeted immigration enforcement operations has also led to a 1,000% increase in violence against immigration enforcement officers, DHS reports.
On Tuesday, an illegal alien from Mexico living in Los Angeles was charged with assault on a federal officer after he rammed law enforcement vehicles with his own car in an effort to escape arrest.
Carlitos Ricardo Parias repeatedly moved his car forward and backward, hitting the law enformcent vehicles that boxed him in. When he continued to resist arrest and attempt to escape, law enforcement—fearing for their own safety, according to the Department of Justice—opened fire. Both Parias and a deputy agent, who was struck by a ricochet bullet, were injured, but are expected to recover.
Federal authorities are investigating the situation. If found guilty, Parias could face up to eight years in prison.
