On Senate Floor, Wyden Sounds Alarm on ICE Abuses, Renews Calls for Strong Privacy Protections

On Senate Floor, Wyden Sounds Alarm on ICE Abuses, Renews Calls for Strong Privacy Protections

Watch a video of Wyden deliver his remarks here

As prepared for delivery

For the Trump administration to stomp to death the first, second, fourth, fifth, and tenth amendments to the Constitution is not immigration enforcement. It's a lawless abuse of federal power.

The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to make their voices heard, and to document lawlessness or abuse by the federal government. It guarantees the right to peacefully assemble and protest against those abuses.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. Regardless of what you think about our current gun laws, there's no justification for murdering a man that was lawfully carrying a firearm.

The Fourth Amendment protects the American people against illegal search and seizure of their property, that includes private data and information. I'll touch more on that in a minute.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to due process. Instead, Trump's masked agents are stopping people on the street and saying, "papers please." Then they get thrown into unmarked vehicles and herded into detention centers, and deported to dangerous conditions, without any due process.

The Tenth Amendment limits federal government overreach and protects states' rights.

The recent events in Minneapolis - the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti - demonstrate exactly how the Trump administration is breaking the law and trashing the Constitution. Alex Pretti was exercising his First Amendment rights to peacefully observe and record abuses by ICE agents. He was exercising his Second Amendment right to lawfully carry a fire, for which he had a permit. He was murdered by Donald Trump's CBP agents. Renee Good was sitting in her car, exercising her First Amendment right to peacefully observe the actions of federal agents. They shot and killed her in broad daylight. In both instances, we have ample video evidence to disprove the Trump administration's attempt to paint these Americans as domestic terrorists and cover up their lawless killings.

I warned when Trump began deploying federal agents to our cities that lives would be at risk. Unfortunately, that's now the reality we face. Our country needs appropriate federal law enforcement to identify and remove those who commit violent crimes. We certainly don't need an American gestapo rousting tourists, immigrants, and naturalized and native-born Americans alike with guns to their heads. Shooting unarmed Americans on the street isn't immigration enforcement. It's intimidation. It's a blatant attempt to suppress free speech and anyone who tries to stand up to Trump's abuse of federal power.

Trump's ICE and CBP agents have clearly been trained in fear tactics instead of legitimate law enforcement. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Kristi Noem and the political appointees at DHS have got to go.

I'm calling on ICE and CBP agents in our streets to get out of communities. I'm pushing for legislation to get them out of our schools, hospitals, places of worship, childcare centers, courthouses and additional public spaces. I'm also calling for the end of ICE locking people up who don't need to be, including the end of family detention and privately-run immigration detention centers. And I'm calling on Border Patrol to go back to ports of entry and not terrorize our communities miles away from their duty stations.

If an individual has committed a local crime, then local law enforcement can assist.

It is far past time these agents who have now murdered two American citizens and shot more under disturbing circumstances are sidelined. ICE and CBP agents certainly have proven they can't be trusted in our communities with their weapons and firearms. If you listen to Trump and his lackeys, they seem to think it's the American people who need to be disarmed. I think most people agree our country needs to overhaul our immigration system, to continue the rich history of welcoming immigrants and refugees, while also securing our border and enforcing immigration laws. That is not what any of Trump's lawless activities are about. Right now, ICE is destroying our rule of law, not protecting it. I've made it clear I cannot and will not support more federal funding for Trump's ICE until there is an end to these killings and abuses, and accountability for everyone involved. In its current form, ICE is no longer an immigration enforcement agency, it's Trump and his administration's gestapo. There can be no more funding for ICE while it kills people on the streets, incites violence, and defies the law.

When Democrats have the opportunity, we will investigate and publicly prosecute anyone complicit in these murders, from Kristi Noem to Greg Bovino, all the way down to the ICE and CBP agents that pulled the trigger on Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We'll also investigate all the agents who have subjected immigrants, including children, to extraordinary cruelty.

Before I wrap up, I'd like to touch on something that's being missed with regard to these abuses, and that's data privacy.

For years, I've been standing here sounding the alarm on the growing appetite of ICE to exploit legal loopholes that allow the federal government to buy up troves of Americans' most private information, including geo-location data. We are now seeing exactly how the Trump administration abuses that information. ICE is using Palantir apps to collect biometric data and run protestors through facial recognition systems. This amounts to labeling people as domestic terrorists just for exercising their First Amendment Rights to peacefully protest and report on federal agents. It's a clear threat to Americans' constitutional rights, and I'm working closely with Senator Ed Markey to stop these abuses.

Second, ICE is buying Americans' private location data from sleazy data brokers through a legal loophole that allows the government to get around the Fourth Amendment. I've had a bill to stop this since 2021. This isn't a red issue or a blue issue. It's a constitutional issue. The American government has no businesses purchasing the location data of American citizens. My Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act would put a stop to the government being able to buy up troves of Americans' personal data from anyone with a credit card. I'm renewing my push to get it passed into black letter law as soon as possible so that agencies like ICE don't have access to Americans' personal information of millions of Americans.

And finally, my investigators exposed that ICE is using government data from state DMVs and other federal agencies. It has refused to answer questions about how that data is being used. So now, I'm leading the fight here in the Senate to rein them in. I have warned states that care about their residents to stop sharing DMV data and enabling ICE's abuses. ICE is using this information to target Americans on our streets. Data privacy has come to be a life-and-death issue. As long as Trump's agents are shooting American citizens dead on the street, this administration having access to our private location data and other information is a threat to everyone's safety.

I'll close with this. My parents fled the Nazis during the very real threat of growing authoritarianism in Germany. What the Trump administration is offering us is indeed the authoritarian playbook: attack the weakest in order to cow the rest of us. My family knows a thing or two about watching a democracy slide toward authoritarian rule. I know what comes next.

The American people deserve to feel and be safe. No one should be forced to live in a country where they're terrified that federal agents might bust your door open in the middle of the night.

I hope every American listening to this will speak out, and never yield their liberties.

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