ASPINWALL, PA – Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that he is not calling for the defunding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead, he wants to see reforms after the chaos surrounding their operations in Minneapolis became deadly.
Deluzio, a Navy veteran and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who completed three deployments, including a tour in Iraq, said the reforms he wants included in a spending bill would focus on ending the detention and deportation of Americans and upholding the sanctity of judicial warrants.
“They’re common sense ones. And if you talk to local cops, they know that deescalation is a part of that,” he said, adding, “Deescalation is good policing, and that’s what we should expect out of our federal agents.”
His pragmatic approach is starkly different from the strident rhetoric made on the other end of the state by Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner, who vowed to prosecute ICE agents at an “ICE OUT” press conference on Wednesday in front of City Hall.
Surrounded by people holding various different kinds of anti-ICE slogans, Krasner slammed the federal officers as a bunch of Nazis and warned millions of Americans would vigorously pursue them.
“In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice,” Krasner said.
Deluzio said he does not engage in rhetoric about “hunting people down” or in dehumanizing language, whether at press conferences or elsewhere.
“I reserve throwing the phrase Nazis at actual Nazis. I don’t just throw that around,” he said.
A wave of local officials across the state have proposed not to support ICE operations. Newly sworn-in Democrat Corey O’Connor, Pittsburgh’s mayor, has repeatedly said the city won’t cooperate with ICE.
The Allegheny County Council introduced a measure Tuesday to bar the county from cooperating with ICE.
Pockets of anti-ICE protests have been organized across the country over the past year, escalating in recent months. Many have been led by groups such as Frontline Dignity, which recently held a training session that included public defenders who told participants they were allowed to ask officers for badge numbers and even curse at them, ahead of a planned march on a local Target store in Pittsburgh.
Target has been called out by activists for allegedly collaborating with ICE agents by allowing them to use their bathrooms and parking lots.
In Minneapolis, organized activists have repeatedly confronted officers, blowing whistles, throwing projectiles, and screaming insults at ICE and Border Patrol personnel, confrontations that have led to tear gas being used against protesters.
Deluzio said it is a two-way street. “Which is why, to me, I come back to the kinds of reforms that I want to see in a spending bill, in a package that might come out of Congress. They’re the hallmarks of good community policing,” he said.
His most important reform, when it comes to, is better protection of American liberties. “I don’t want to see these warrantless entries into people’s homes. I think the masking is a real problem. So I’m talking about reforms that, if we get those done, could, to me, make this agency more responsive and do better policing. That’s the path I think makes sense here,” he said.
On Thursday, Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, held a press conference in Minneapolis after spending much of the week there meeting with the state’s attorney general, governor, and mayor. He emphasized two points: law and order remain a priority, and that he is willing to work together.
Homan said during his press conference that he has had “meaningful dialogue” with local elected officials and plans to continue meeting with them. Homan added that while they don’t agree on everything, “the bottom line is you can’t fix problems if you don’t have discussions … I came here to seek solutions.”