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Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, faced sharp questioning from Democrats and occasional support from Republicans during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday as he defended how federal officers are carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Lyons testified alongside Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Rodney Scott, who leads U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The three agency leaders appeared before the committee for what the hearing followed as investigations continued into the Jan. shootings in which Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed, with Lyons and Scott saying standard operating procedures were being followed as part of the investigations.
In his opening remarks, Lyons stood behind officers’ tactics and said they would not be intimidated. “Let me send a message to anyone who thinks they can intimidate us. You will fail,” Lyons said, blaming elected officials and protesters for escalating rhetoric that he said endangered his officers. Lyons also said, “We are only getting started,” while declining to comment directly at various points on the killings of the two U.S. citizens.
The hearing lasted roughly three and a half hours and took place as Democrats pressed for constraints on immigration officers before they would agree to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The officials also warned lawmakers that the country would be less safe if federal funds expire at the end of the week, as the testimony came shortly after Congress last summer provided a large infusion of money to the department and enforcement operations intensified across the country.
Committee Chairman Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York, a Republican, framed the session as an “inflection point,” and he said the deaths were “unacceptable and preventable.” Republicans, the hearing record said, shifted toward Biden-era policies they argued had allowed migrants to enter the country in large numbers, and they said the Trump administration has sealed the U.S.-Mexico border and ended “lawlessness” in the immigration system.
Democrats argued the enforcement operations inside cities have created a dangerous environment, and they compared the actions to Nazi Germany during exchanges that at times led the chairman to gavel lawmakers back to order. Ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said the hearing marked “the start of a reckoning,” and he argued that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be held accountable, including over the department’s refusal to allow lawmakers to visit detention facilities.
Scott, in his remarks, said federal officers faced what he described as an “unprecedented level of aggressive interference and intimidation.” He called attacks on officers “coordinated and well funded,” while the administration’s overall position was that activists and protesters escalate attacks on federal officers and that enforcement operations are making the country safer by finding and removing people who have committed crimes or pose a threat.
During the questioning, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas offered rare pushback on the Democratic line of attack and suggested that Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino had helped escalate tensions over immigration enforcement, including in Minneapolis. McCaul said, “I would argue, in fairness, that he escalated the situation,” and he praised what followed the Pretti shooting: Bovino’s reassignment and Trump sending border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to take control.
Other details that emerged in the hearing included the description that a Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer both opened fire during Pretti’s death, and that Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer. Lyons also attributed any de-escalation since then to protests diminishing, which he said allowed ICE “to do their targeted, intelligence driven enforcement operation.”
A major point of tension was whether federal officers should be required to remove masks. Rep. Tim Kennedy, a Democrat from New York, asked Lyons if he would commit to requiring officers to remove their masks as part of negotiations. Lyons answered, “No,” which Kennedy described as a “sad response.” Lyons also said officers would not be deterred, and in a separate exchange Lyons pointed to transparency measures, including his support for body cameras for officers; he and Scott said thousands of officers now wear body cameras.
Noem said last week, according to the hearing record, that every DHS officer on the ground in Minneapolis would be issued those cameras immediately and that the program would be expanded nationwide as funding becomes available.
The Associated Press reported that the overall hearing is unlikely to quell simmering tensions around the enforcement campaign, which critics say tramples on the rights of immigrants facing arrest as well as Americans protesting the enforcement actions. The testimony instead underscored a broad dispute in Congress over the pace and methods of the administration’s second-term immigration push.