Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I want to take a few moments to discuss the brave men and women who serve in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I had the privilege of visiting the ICE office in my hometown of Louisville this past Friday and of meeting with these agents in person.

This is a Federal agency that was created following the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is responsible for several key aspects of our homeland security: enforcing our immigration laws, combating terrorism, and preventing people and goods from moving illegally throughout our country. Its record on these vital missions is staggering. In fiscal year 2017, ICE recorded more than 105,000 arrests of aliens with known criminal convictions on their records--nearly 4,600 convictions for robbery, more than 3,700 for sexual assault, and more than 1,500 for homicide.

We are talking about the men and women in law enforcement who confront all of this in order to keep all of us safe. This is hardly a controversial mission; it is essential. We are lucky these agents are willing to serve. The Nation is better off for it. So I wanted to pay these agents a visit in Louisville and thank them firsthand for their work.

Recently, they have fallen into the crosshairs of some extremely vocal, far-left special interest groups, groups that explicitly say-- now get this; this is what they say--that our Nation would be better off with no borders and no immigration laws of any kind. That is what these people advocate. They are slandering ICE agents. They are calling the agency ``an unaccountable strike force executing a campaign of ethnic cleansing'' and even ``a genuine threat to democracy.'' That is what they are calling ICE agents. According to these leftwing groups, the threat to democracy is not the violent criminals who are illegally present in our country but, rather, the brave law enforcement officers who volunteer to take them on.

Well, fringe political movements are nothing new. You can find a few Americans who will argue almost any side of any issue. What is new-- what does get my attention--is when prominent, leading Democratic politicians, including a number of our colleagues right here in the Senate, adopt some of these extremist views wholesale and let the far- left talking points form the basis of their own policy positions.

The junior Senator from New York said recently that if Democrats regain the House and Senate, the first thing they should do is ``get rid of ICE.''

The senior Senator from Massachusetts pointed to ``replacing ICE'' as the first priority of a top-to-bottom rebuild of America's immigration system.

The mayor of New York City calls the agency ``no longer acceptable.''

A Member of the U.S. House of Representatives likened it to--get this--``the Gestapo of the United States.'' The gestapo of the United States? I am really not sure where to begin in responding to this foaming hysteria.

It is one thing for a few protesters and Socialist hecklers who want open borders and the elimination of all immigration laws to adopt a slogan as silly and ill-considered as ``abolish ICE,'' but it is something else entirely when U.S. Senators are so eager to please these leftwing extremists that they join that chorus--join in denigrating the men and women of U.S. law enforcement. This is the moment we are in-- that of leading Democrats' taking cues from the open-borders Socialist crowd and proposing to eliminate the very agency that enforces Federal immigration laws within the interior of our country. Talk about a political stunt.

The American people want nothing to do with these dangerous antics. My neighbors and constituents in Kentucky certainly don't. So my fellow Republicans and I will continue to proudly stand with ICE, stand with the rule of law, and stand with all of the American families who would rather have fewer drugs and less crime in the communities in which they are raising their children.

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