Video: Senator-Elect Abdul El-Sayed Tells MS NOW's 'Morning Joe' 'I Don't Think We Need an ICE' and Calls the Agency 'Paramilitary Force on Our Streets'
A 1 minute 43 second MS NOW clip posted by Breitbart with a partial transcript. The Michigan Democrat says he would go back to the old INS and wants accountability for agents who broke the law. We relied on the transcript, not the video.
Breitbart posted a clip of Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, on MS NOW's "Morning Joe" on Thursday. We relied on Breitbart's partial transcript, not the video.
The exchange. Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, "What about ICE?" El-Sayed answered by referring to the shooting of Alex Pretti and what he called the murder of Renee Good, saying they should be investigated. Joe Scarborough asked whether the Senate could find out "who's behind the masks." El-Sayed said, "I hope we do."
His position. "ICE is not about immigration," he said. "ICE is about normalizing paramilitary force on our streets." He said he made the same argument in 2018 and added, "I don't think we need an ICE." He said conditions were "safest" under the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, before ICE was created, and that "Donald Trump has weaponized it twice in his first term and in his second term."
Accountability. El-Sayed said "people who broke our laws under the guise of serving in the federal government need to be held accountable for what they've done." He added that the focus should be on "preventing the worst thing from happening," not only on accountability.
Why it matters here. This is a stated goal from a senator-elect, in a Senate that Democrats will control. DHS has said in our Seattle detainer report that "deportations will continue." Breitbart's clip headline picks the most pointed phrase from his answer.
What we could not check. We did not watch the video, so we cannot judge tone or what came before or after. The transcript is partial. We did not verify his claims about the INS, the two shootings, or who carried them out, and the transcript does not say what he would put in ICE's place beyond a return to the earlier agency. We saw no response from DHS.