Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers of committing “terroristic attacks” on U.S. citizens during a hearing, drawing an immediate rebuke from Republican colleagues.
“Agencies should never be held hostage to justify the terroristic attacks upon the citizens of the people of this country,” Johnson said, as quoted by the New York Post. “And I’m sorry Republicans are holding you hostage.”
The remarks came during a congressional hearing as lawmakers debated federal agency operations amid the ongoing government shutdown dispute.
Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO), the next Republican to speak, fired back directly at Johnson’s characterization of federal law enforcement.
“I don’t think you can get a clearer example of where folks stand, when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle compare federal law enforcement to terrorists at a time where we have literal terrorists that I deployed to fight committing attacks in the homeland,” Evans said. “That’s incredibly disappointing to me.”
Evans is a U.S. Army veteran who served multiple combat deployments overseas.
Johnson represents Texas’s 32nd Congressional District, which includes parts of Dallas and its suburbs. She has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
ICE agents have been deployed to airports and other locations across the country in recent weeks as part of a broader federal law enforcement initiative. Democrats have argued the deployments target citizens and lawful residents without sufficient oversight.
Republicans pushed back hard on that framing Wednesday. The GOP has maintained that ICE operations target individuals in the country illegally, not American citizens, and that the comparison to terrorism amounts to a slander against the men and women of federal law enforcement.
