Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Need To Rein In ICE & Stop The Violence

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor blasting Donald Trump and Senate Republicans for continuing to give ICE free rein on American streets, recently leading to agents fatally shooting two people. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

How long, how long will Republicans let Trump's secret police continue to sow chaos and violence in our American streets?

For the second time in less than a week, ICE agents fatally shot someone - first in Texas, and again in Maine yesterday.

There's still a lot of unanswered questions about these two shootings, but what little we do know is disturbing to say the least.

Both cases appear to have involved ICE agents, who were not wearing body cameras, killing individuals who were not subject to the agents' warrant. Why were these two people shot at and killed? We don't know the answers, there are no body cameras yet. There are no body cameras as we would've required.

The ICE agents in Texas were also riding in unmarked vehicles.

If Republicans had passed our bill, there would be body cameras, proper agent ID, warrant requirements, and other commonsense reforms, and these killings might not have happened. I hope our Republican colleagues are listening. If they had passed our reforms, these killings might not have happened. With those reforms, we would at least have a better idea of what exactly happened so we can avoid further killings in the future.

Instead, Republicans poured tens of billions of dollars into Trump's rogue agencies with no strings attached. No strings attached. While every other police department in America has rules, our Republican colleagues and Trump said no rules, do whatever you want. And look what results, look what's happened.

It's dangerous to give ICE free rein when we expect every other law enforcement agency in the country to follow basic codes of conduct.

Allowing unidentified federal agents to roam through American streets, kick down people's doors without a warrant, shoot people dead in the street without any, any provocation as it might well be here, that's an invitation for state-sanctioned violence - not an immigration policy.

I am calling on the Trump administration to release all information related to these two shootings, and we need to conduct independent investigations of each.

The American people need to know how and why this chaos is spreading through their streets. And Republicans, which refuse to go along with real reform of ICE, reforms that we see in every police department in the country, should pivot, change their minds, realize these shootings were just awful, and work with us to reform this rogue agency. The American people need to know, of course, how and why this chaos is spreading through their streets, and we need a complete investigation that's independent.

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