One Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has been referred for discipline over a use-of-force incident since the start of the Trump administration, Democratic members of the House Homeland Security Committee said Wednesday following a closed-door briefing with ICE officials, according to ABC News.
The briefing covered body cameras, vehicle stops, and training. It came in the wake of two shootings in which ICE officers killed immigrants they were attempting to arrest, one in Maine and one in Houston, within the span of a single week. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since President Trump launched his enforcement crackdown after retaking office.
Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said officials told committee members during the briefing that ICE had received 56 complaints of excessive force against its officers. Of those, 32 were cleared and one was referred for disciplinary action. No discipline had yet been handed out, Magaziner said. The remaining incidents were still under investigation.
Magaziner was direct in his reaction to the numbers. "It just defies belief that an agency of 20,000 plus officers with all of the chaos that we've seen over the last year and a half through the surges and civilians being injured and killed, that no one would be found to have violated use of force with the exception of possibly one person," he said.
The figures show an increase in complaints since February, when then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons told the Senate during testimony that the agency had opened 37 investigations for excessive force. At that point, 18 had been closed, 19 were pending, and one had been referred for further action.
The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said ICE officials could not discuss either the Maine or Houston shootings because both are open investigations. Thompson said he came away from the briefing with more questions than answers. Among them was a basic one about accountability: who actually investigates use-of-force incidents. He said the answer was inconsistent. "Sometimes they said the FBI, sometimes" was as far as the response went before it became unclear.
In the Maine case, family members of the ICE officer who fired said he had a history of violent behavior and should not have been given a badge and gun. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. Department leadership has previously said it would hold officers accountable for policy violations while also defending agents as operating in dangerous conditions where they face constant threats.
