Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said President Donald Trump is setting up “Orwellian” circumstances by sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into communities.
Host Jake Tapper said, “I want to turn to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis. You have said that all the facts need to come out, that everyone needs to be held accountable. There are Democrats, Democratic officials who have just declared that this was a murder.”
He asked, “Do you have any issues with them calling it a murder?”
Warner said, “Listen, I’ve got issues with any public official, including the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, calling it domestic terrorism. I’m a little bit old-fashioned. When an American citizen is killed by a federal law enforcement official, we ought to let the investigation take place without jumping to conclusions. I mean, that’s what our system’s about. But I do think there are concerns. One, we’ve got, you know, remember, we’re beefing up ICE, 10,000 more agents. They are not getting the traditional five months of training. Literally, Jake, the training for the ICE agents now is 47 days. Why 47 days? Because Donald Trump is the 47th president. And the idea of going into neighborhoods and going after folks is not traditional ICE training. I think this is kind of an Orwellian circumstance where we’ve got cities on edge all across America. We wanted the border shut down. Right, I agree with that. But sending ICE agents into community after community, where they’re perhaps not fully trained, puts us in, again, uncharted territory and not something I think the vast majority of American people want.”
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