Rep. Pramila Jayapal posted on election night that “ICE’s cruelty lost” and that “it’s time to hold them accountable,” as Democrats seized control of the House and set the stage for her to become chair of the Immigration Subcommittee.
The Washington Democrat, currently the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, has spent months describing how she intends to use power if Democrats took control in the midterms.
In a July interview, Jayapal said that when she becomes chair, she plans to “haul all of these people before my committee with subpoenas, demand accountability, and start to actually use every lever in the toolbox to get them out and to demand accountability.”
Jayapal has called ICE a “rogue militia” that “should not exist the way it exists” and has said the agency needs to be “completely disbanded.”
In remarks to Washington state Democrats, she has discussed bringing forward agents she labeled “corrupt” who had “kidnapped, detained, deported, and killed.”
