House Democrats held a forum Wednesday to call attention to harms from President Donald Trump's tough-on-immigration enforcement push, highlighting stories of individuals who interacted with immigration agents. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the event was necessary to push back on Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions and the Trump administration's policies. “Democrats are doing what Republicans won’t, sounding the alarm on what Border Patrol and ICE are doing to American citizens and communities across the country under the Trump administration," Thompson said. Witnesses included Rev. David Black, a Chicago-based pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, who told of his story of immigration agents firing upon him with pepper balls while he was protesting at the Broadview ICE Detention Center. “We know very little about what happens to people after they are detained by ICE, though many are sent to outsourced internment camps, which have been described by independent observers as death camps," Black said. James Brown, a military veteran, told the story about his wife Donna Hughes Brown, an Irish national whom he said was a legal permanent U.S. resident with a green card. He said she is currently in immigration detention based on misdemeanor bad check charges from more than a decade ago that were valued at $60. Brown questioned why the Trump administration would seek to detain his wife for the misdemeanor and seek to deport her while Trump issues pardons in million-dollar fraud cases. "You know, my wife's got a $60 deal, and they pardon people for millions of dollars,” Brown said. “Just insane." Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs on immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the forum the Trump administration policies were not about immigration enforcement but "consolidating power." “The administration promises safety but threatens the safety of us by unleashing agents in our communities and essentially promising them immunity, immunity that they do not have," Shah said. Other witnesses were pediatricians — Minal Giri, executive director of the Midwest Human Rights Consortium, and Alan Shapiro, senior medical director of the Bronx Health Collective — who warned about the immigration raids' impact on the health of children and called for schools and hospital to be declared safe zones from immigration enforcement. A key premise of the hearing was the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens in immigration enforcement, which have become visible amid the U.S. government's sweeping efforts in immigration raids. A recent ProPublica report counted 170 such incidents since the beginning of the Trump administration. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., said the number is actually "at least 172" and shared the stories of two of her constituents who are U.S. citizens and detained by immigration enforcement. One was a woman who was with her husband and taken from her car, had a gun pointed to her face, her wrists handcuffed to her ankles and was detained for hours at a field office in Portland before immigration officers realized their mistake, Salinas said. The other was a man who was taken from work site by masked ICE agents, forced on to the floor of van and held for hours at a field office despite his pleas they had the wrong person, she said. "We're watching the Trump administration weaponize the government and military against its citizens right now," Salinas concluded. "This is plain and simple. That is what they're doing." Senate hearing The forum took place as a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee concurrently held a separate hearing titled, "ICE Under Fire: The Radical Left’s Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement," which a different perspective on immigration enforcement and hostility toward officials as the problem. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in an opening statement that people on the left continue to vilify immigration enforcement officials who are simply carrying out their duties under the law, and assaults and attacks on immigration officers have skyrocketed. He said people have rammed officers with vehicles, thrown rocks, bottles and smoke grenades, laid down in roads to prevent officers from leaving and slashed tires on government vehicles, among other actions. “Protesters have made violent threats against ICE officers, comparing them to fascists and Nazis, inciting more violence against immigration officers who are again are simply doing the job Congress asked them to do, they are enforcing federal laws,” Cornyn said. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in an opening statement that American citizens were caught up in these raids, such as a pregnant woman in Florida, a U.S. citizen, who was thrown to the ground in an arrest and later miscarried. “What we are seeing every day is new acts of brutality and misuse of force in communities across the country,” Padilla said.
