Has the KKK arrested over 8,000 child predators since 2003? That is what Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., would have you believe. But it isn’t so.
It was ICE that arrested more than 8,000 heinous criminals who prey on children. Yet ICE continues to be the scapegoat in the political quagmire of immigration enforcement.
In a faceoff with the incoming ICE Director Ronald Vitiello, Harris asked the former border patrol chief, “Are you aware that there is a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation, particularly among immigrants and specifically among immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America?”
Does Harris know that ICE arrests human rights violators from Central America? This year alone ICE arrested 33 of them across the United States. Many of them were charged with atrocious crimes in Central America, including a “former intelligence officer who surveilled and arrested dozens of targets subsequently tortured in Central America.” ICE has over a hundred open cases against human rights violators at this very moment and is doing everything it can to bring these criminals to justice.
That doesn’t sound like the KKK, does it?
No, Sen. Harris, ICE is not the KKK. I know this because the employees I supervised and worked alongside came from every walk of life, every race, and every religion and did their jobs based on their dedication to enforcing our nation’s laws, enacted by Congress and signed by both Democratic and Republican presidents.
Many ICE agents, like myself, first deployed in support of our military efforts abroad, putting their lives on the line. Now they come home to hate-filled rhetoric by our country’s lawmakers under the Abolish ICE movement and are being referred to as having parallels to the KKK.
Imagine being a wounded warrior working for ICE’s HERO Program and being bashed daily for working to support ICE. The HERO program, according to ICE, is for “wounded, injured and ill Special Operations Forces to receive training in high-tech computer forensics and law enforcement skills, to assist federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation.”
How can a unit like this be compared to the KKK?
Perhaps Harris should stop slinging a barrage of accusations against ICE and travel the less than two miles from the U.S. Capitol to ICE headquarters. Perhaps Harris should meet the people she unjustly accuses of hate.
If Harris has a few moments to spare from her presidential campaign, she should meet with ICE’s employees and learn about the other 20-plus missions they fulfill outside of immigration enforcement. If Harris wants solutions, she should engage in open communication, not a one-sided insult-fest intended only to score political points.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a former Supervisor with the Department of Homeland Security, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and nationally recognized whistleblower for the 2015 release of unaccompanied alien children to criminal sponsors.
