Statement on ICE activities in our country
Rep. Tim Brennan January 29, 2026 | 11:57 AM
January 29, 2026
What we are seeing in American streets in the name of maintaining order is just the opposite, it is chaos.
For two and a half centuries Americans have fought and died for a quality of order that allows liberty to flourish. That is the mission of American governance; we have always stood for Justice and a higher order of being.
The daily injustices ICE is inflicting in our streets, these scenes that our children are forced to watch, are contrary to that order and liberty. We are witnessing abandonment of process and principle and a constant reckless overreach by this administration, which risks forever changing the nature of who we are as a family of citizens and a country of free people.
When I was in law school, more than one professor referred to Chief Justice Earl Warren’s remark that, “In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.” Twenty years later, I see just how fragile the rule of law can be and how dependent it is on the values and resolve of those governed. For democracy to endure, we need to remember the transcendent origins of this American experiment and stand up for the principles that have made such tremendous human achievement possible. In terms of what’s happening in our communities, many of us have already said, "Enough, this is not who we are," and the time to prove who we truly are as Americans is right now -- inaction, quiet disapproval or indifference will not preserve who we are as a people.
I’ve heard from so many of you -- parents who are afraid, people terrified for neighbors or friends, and fellow citizens who are demoralized and exhausted -- that an ICE animated by the current administration isn’t protecting our communities but undermining the quality of life and liberties they expect as Americans. ICE agents acting as directed by this administration are stripping away liberties we long fought for and treasure. They have fatally shot civilians, violated community norms and repulsed most good-hearted men and women of this county. We cannot tolerate this, especially in a country where autonomy and freedom are the cornerstone of our historic national identity.
The protests we’re seeing across the United States are the result of a people who love their neighbors and their country and won’t pretend they’re not seeing what their eyes are seeing. If we’re indifferent, we don’t just lose accountability -- we lose our political culture, our voice and ultimately our democracy. We owe it to the generations who came before us, and to the ones yet to be born, to protect the values that make this nation exceptional.
Our freedom isn’t something we inherit by default. After serving in World War I as a military chaplain, William Havard famously said, “The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.” Congress functions as part of a machinery to transmit that freedom by serving as a check and balance on executive power. Right now, that balance is failing. If we stand by passively while ICE operates unchecked, we betray that inheritance.
I have supported and advocated for bills to end the local funding of federal immigration operations and the masking of federal immigration officials, among other substantive protections. Though I am a state official, I’m also urging Congress to do its job and to act immediately to rein in ICE’s unrestrained authority; to overhaul how these federal agents are deployed, trained, and held accountable; and to ensure that federal enforcement does not come at the cost of innocent lives or constitutional rights. We deserve better, and that means real leadership and oversight from Congress.
This isn’t a Democratic or Republican concern -- it’s an American concern. We must stand up for the values that define us, or face becoming the generation that squandered the opportunity so many have sacrificed to provide us.