Lawmaker says 'Trump has turned ICE into secret police,' then defends agents' service

A lawmaker delivering testimony said, "Trump has turned ICE into secret police," and described practices he said fit that label, including "unmarked vans, unmarked uniforms, no judicial warrant, knock down doors...grab people, detain them, and often prevent them from having access and communication with families or lawyers." The lawmaker said those elements are "the hallmark of secret police around the world."

Later in the same testimony the lawmaker referred to "a comment made by the ranking member talking about secret police," calling that comment "outrageous" and saying "the men and women of ICE are sworn law enforcement officers. They do their job. They're trained to do their job. They have a very dangerous job in what they do."

The testimony concluded with the lawmaker saying, "if you don't want to be secret police, don't act like secret police," and noting he had "laid out the factual basis" for his earlier characterization. The transcript provides these competing statements from a single speaker but does not include any additional speakers' remarks or a formal question, motion or vote tied to the exchange. The transcript also does not identify the speaker by name or provide committee or hearing metadata in the text.

Because the transcript contains strongly worded assertions and an internal rebuttal by the same speaker, reporting here limits claims to the speaker's explicit words and records that the dispute remained in the testimony rather than resolved by formal action.