WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson drew sharp criticism on Tuesday after dismissing concerns over escalating Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, insisting the agency’s aggressive tactics in U.S. communities have yet to overstep boundaries.
Speaking to reporters, Johnson addressed a pointed question from Courthouse News reporter Benjamin J. Weiss, who pressed him on reports of ICE raids terrorizing American communities.
“I have not seen them cross the line yet,” Johnson said flatly, waving off examples of shattered windows, detained veterans, and non-criminal deportations that have sparked protests nationwide.
The remarks come amid a surge in ICE enforcement under the Trump administration. Internal DHS data reveals that fewer than 10% of those detained since October 2024 had serious criminal convictions, with over 75% facing only immigration or minor traffic violations.
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Critics, including immigrant rights groups, decry the sweeps as indiscriminate, likening them to “militarized encroachments” that evoke historical flashpoints like 19th-century fugitive slave rescues.
In Chicago, a September 30 raid at an apartment complex left 37 people in custody, including parents yanked from homes as children screamed in hallways strewn with debris.
Witnesses described federal agents smashing windows and deploying helicopters that “hovered like an invading army,” according to Illinois State Rep. Lilian Jiménez.
Los Angeles has fared no better: Raids at workplaces like car washes and Home Depots have emptied pews, idled vendors, and halved foot traffic in immigrant-heavy districts such as MacArthur Park, where residents now avoid local shops out of fear.
Asian American leaders in L.A. have urged solidarity with Latino communities, warning that ICE’s net is widening to include Chinese, Taiwanese, and Bangladeshi immigrants in raids near ethnic enclaves.
Even U.S. veterans—many naturalized citizens—have been swept up, prompting arrests of protesters outside processing centers and backlash over the agency’s use of VA hospital lots as staging grounds.
As Congress bickers over whether ICE should be masked or unmasked, regulated or unleashed, the raids roll on — unbound, unaccountable, and increasingly at the center of America’s moral crisis.
Johnson’s remark may have been intended as a defense of order. Instead, it captured something darker — the distance between Washington’s abstractions and the human wreckage they permit.
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