Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) broke with most of his Republican peers Thursday, using his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security committee to press immigration officials on agents’ violent behavior.
He and ranking member Gary Peters (D-MI) teamed up to ask acting ICE chief Todd Lyons and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott questions about officers’ use of force as they played a frame-by-frame video of Alex Pretti’s killing. It was an unusual bipartisan display, indicative of Paul’s willingness, at least for now, to buck the Trump administration’s insistence on full-throated support for the agents.
“Because you made conclusions immediately — not you, but people within the government — made conclusions immediately that he was a terrorist and an assassin, people aren’t believing that it’s going to be an honest investigation,” Paul told the agency heads. He added that there have to be “repercussions,” that “some of this stuff’s inexcusable.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) actually jumped in during Paul’s opening to push back, applauding the agency heads for their reluctance to answer specific questions about use of force during the Pretti killing, and insisting that the agents involved have constitutional protections that must be respected.
Just after the Pretti killing in late January, public outcry reached such a fever pitch that even a few MAGA Republicans expressed their discomfort and called for an investigation. Thursday’s Senate hearing, and its House counterpart earlier in the week, were called in that aftermath.
But in the two weeks since, as the news cycle moved on, congressional Republicans have seemed less inclined to critique the agencies. During Tuesday’s House hearing, the only Republicans who offered even mild criticism of agents’ behavior were frontline members who sit in swing seats.
Paul similarly stood out Thursday, as his Republican colleagues largely used their time to condemn the protesters.
“It’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost,” Paul said. “To restore trust in ICE and border patrol, they must admit their mistakes, be honest and forthright with their rules of engagement and pledge to reform.”
The witnesses, though, only made minimal concessions about their agents’ behavior during the hearing, which came the same day that border czar Tom Homan announced that the administration was ending the Minnesota surge. When Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) pressed Lyons on what he’d learned from Minneapolis, the ICE chief did not cite the killings of two American citizens.
“People can go out there and protest, but why are we going to encourage individuals to go out there and impede and put themselves in harm’s way? I think that’s the lesson learned from this,” he said.
When the closest you can come to a Republican with conscience is Rand Paul, you’ve got a problem. Rand has no conscience, of course. He has an angle here. Rand is interested only in what is good for Rand.
It’s past time for today’s Republican party to go the way of the Whigs.
At least it’s an ethos.
This is willful ignorance. The Gestapo claims that people have the right to protest, but if they try to protect the people that Gestapo is going after, they put themselves “in harms way.” He’s using the passive voice specifically here. The “harm” is not an abstract concept. It is an out of control secret police force attacking people in the street.
If Paul’s neighbor had just been a little more thorough we’d all be better off.