U.S. Rep. Josh Breechen (R-OK), who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, was interviewed on the “Washington Watch” program Wednesday after participating in a contentious committee hearing. The hearing featured Democrats grilling and lecturing ICE Director Todd Lyons after two anti-ICE activists, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis with phone cameras recording the incidents.
The hearing also unfolded at the same time Democrats are attempting to use a government shutdown to squeeze Republicans to cave to so-called “reforms” to ICE. That shutdown deadline comes Friday.
The GOP lawmaker told "Washington Watch" what is happening at DHS and ICE is a “course correction"” after millions of unvetted illegal immigrants were allowed to enter and stay.
“The borders have been wide open,” the lawmaker said. “This a very rapid change: actually enforcing the law. It’s a novel idea, but it’s happening, and there’s conflict.”
Donald Trump’s promise to find and deport illegal immigrants, who number anywhere from 14 million to 20 million, was a key campaign promise from his 2024 presidential campaign.
The administration has publicly ordered DHS and ICE to find and arrest 3,000 illegals a day, which would add up to 1 million deportations in a year.
About 1.4 million have a final deportation order from an immigration court, which means they can be apprehended and removed without another trip through the backlogged court system.
The daily number of ICE arrests nationwide has hovered around 800 to 1,000 daily, according to news reports.
That attempted crackdown comes after Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary under President Biden, previously declared the “border is secure” at the same time 7.5 million illegals entered the U.S. through the southern border.
About 85% of them were allowed to remain in the U.S. pending an immigration hearing in a court system that is backlogged by as much as 10 years, according to The New York Post.
Lawmaker: ICE in the streets to arrest criminals
Breechen told “Washington Watch” the public is being misled by Democrats and the news media to believe ICE agents are running wild in the streets.
If liberal sanctuary cities would cooperate with ICE and hold a criminal illegal alien in their jail, the lawmaker said, ICE agents wouldn’t be in the streets and the cities would be safer from illegals who have committed terrible crimes.
“This is manufactured,” the GOP lawmaker told show host Tony Perkins, “because those who oppose this administration are trying to make it as hard as possible.”
Since it’s obvious Democrats will not change their minds over ICE and deportations, Breechen said the Republicans must reach the independent voter who is trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong.
One answer to that question Breechen continued, is to visit the DHS website, DHS.gov, and see the names and criminal records of illegal aliens nabbed by ICE agents who are making the streets safer.
That list of criminals on the DHS website is a section called "WOW," for the “Worst of the Worst” illegal aliens apprehended by ICE for a one-way trip to their home country.
An example from the “WOW” website came from the GOP lawmaker’s own state: Emmanuel Martinez, 36, was recently nabbed by ICE agents in Atoka, Oklahoma. Martinez, who is from Mexico, has been convicted of sexual acts with a minor.
Breechen mentioned Martinez, and his violent criminal record, at the testy committee hearing.
“The stories that need to be discussed are the news stories we're not talking about,” Breechen told Perkins “about how these sexual predators would have been preying upon somebody close to you, or somebody that you would have known, in your communities.”
