Pushing Back Against Ice's Authoritarian Overreach

Floor Speech

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Ms. ANSARI. Mr. Speaker, I want you to imagine for a moment that a person is going to the grocery store, grabbing coffee, or picking their child up from school.

Instead of running errands or waiting for the school bell like usual, that individual is surrounded by masked men who scream at them, shove them to the ground, threaten them with weapons, and throw them into the back of a car.

People are calling out for help, asking where that person is being taken. Authorities refuse to answer. The person has no idea where they are going, who these people are, or when or if they will ever see their family again.

Mr. Speaker, imagine if you, or worse, your child, experienced the terror, the fear, and the blind pain of being kidnapped off the street.

For many of my constituents, this is a horrific reality that they are dealing with every single day. ICE is terrorizing our communities. They are kidnapping people off of the streets, tearing families apart, and destroying futures to meet insane daily quotas enacted by Donald Trump.

Just a few weeks ago, Republicans in Congress passed a massive budget that funnels billions of new dollars to ICE. This money makes ICE the largest domestic police force in the United States with more resources than dozens of militaries around the entire world.

This funding is unprecedented, and it is a free pass for ICE to ramp up Trump's cruel and inhumane mass deportation policies.

They are already building concentration camps in Florida where they are threatening to lock up legal immigrants and Latinos from across the country. I have visited facilities like this.

On May 29, I went to the Eloy Detention Center just outside my district. I met with women who wanted to and, frankly, were desperate to share their stories with me.

One was a green card holder who had been pulled over for a traffic stop. When they learned of her status, they stripped her of her green card and threw her into ICE detention without another thought. She had been trying to reach her family for months.

Another woman told me a story about a guard taking all of the women out into the blazing Arizona heat. He forced them to march in circles for hours without water. One woman fainted and needed medical attention.

While they marched, the guard yelled at them: This is the price of the American Dream.

It should not matter who these women are. It should not matter whether they are citizens, legal residents, or undocumented people trying to make a life for themselves.

It is shameful and embarrassing for our country that we would treat any human being like this. The detention centers and the facilities in this country are atrocious. They have absolutely zero oversight mechanisms in place.

More than a month later, after formally inquiring to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE about the conditions that I saw firsthand, I have yet to receive a response.

People are being harassed. They are being dehumanized. They are being abused.

Last weekend, I tried to return to Eloy to meet with several constituents of mine who are detained there.

I wanted to meet with a woman named Yari who has chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She has been detained at Eloy since February and has lost 55 pounds while in detention. She needs help.

I also hoped to meet with a man who has been coughing up blood for weeks.

Lastly, I wanted to meet with a 35-year-old woman with a kidney infection who says her antibiotics are not working and her condition is worsening.

Even after ICE put in place new protocols to make it more difficult for us to do our job and our oversight work, we tried to follow their new rules. I gave them ample notice of my visit and a list of constituents that I hoped to meet with. They let us know that our visit was approved.

Then less than 24 hours before I was supposed to make the trip, they changed their minds and said that my meeting with my constituents was denied.

ICE is leaving families without answers and human beings without care. They are doing it, regardless of whether people are undocumented, legal residents, or even American citizens.

They are splitting up parents by sending them to different detention facilities and then making children navigate the funds for a lawyer and basic survival.

If I cannot get answers as a U.S. Congresswoman, how is anyone else in my district supposed to? Any one of us could be next.

I will always stand with and fight for our immigrant communities. I will do everything I can to push back against Trump's authoritarian overreach.

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