Washington (United States) (AFP) – The leaders of the three core US immigration agencies will testify before the Senate’s powerful Homeland Security Committee in two weeks, it said Tuesday, as federal operations in Minneapolis and beyond face intense scrutiny after two fatal shootings. The February 12 hearing has been scheduled amid mounting criticism of a surge in enforcement actions ordered by President Donald Trump that have sparked deadly encounters between federal agents and civilians in the largest city of the northern state of Minnesota.
Republican Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate panel, posted on social media that the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had agreed to appear. Paul underscored what he described as Congress’s duty to examine the scope and use of the significant taxpayer funding devoted to immigration enforcement. In a sharply worded message to agency leadership, Paul stressed the importance of reviewing what he described as the “exceptional amount of funding” the Republican-led Congress has provided for border security and immigration enforcement.
“Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight of those tax dollars and ensure the funding is used to accomplish the mission, provide proper support for our law enforcement, and most importantly, protect the American people,” he wrote. The letters were addressed to CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons, and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow.
The announcement of the hearing came with the Midwestern city of Minneapolis becoming a flashpoint in the national immigration debate. Earlier this month, federal agents shot and killed unarmed Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman, as she attempted to drive away from an ICE enforcement operation, triggering protests and criticism from civil rights groups and local officials. On Saturday, another Minneapolis resident, intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, also 37, was beaten and shot dead by CBP agents as he tried to help a woman that one of them had just shoved to the ground. Both killings have drawn international attention and condemnation over the government’s egregiously false accounts of what happened, intensifying public concern about the conduct and oversight of federal immigration operations.
Paul questioned the decision by lawmakers to propose an additional $10 billion for ICE operations in 2026, noting that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by Trump last July, already earmarked more than $75 billion for ICE over the next four years. “In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding,” Paul posted on X. “So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.”
© 2024 AFP
