As Donald Trump’s administration weaponizes its powers — including the might of the Justice Department — to target people who help document the actions of its often-masked immigration enforcement agents, Democrats at the federal and state levels are launching their own efforts to document alleged misconduct and potentially hold agents and federal agencies accountable.
With each passing day, it seems a new wave of videos goes viral showing agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement inflicting some form of violence against allegedly undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. Amid all of this, Trump’s administration has argued that efforts to inform the public about where federal agents are active — everything from app-based alerts to news reports about enforcement activity — put agents in danger. This is also how they have justified masked agents, despite comparisons — including from a conservative judge — to the Ku Klux Klan.
On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her office has launched a portal that New Yorkers can use to file allegations of misconduct. The announcement came after footage of federal agents rounding up people suspected of being undocumented immigrants — and possibly some American citizens, too — on New York City’s Canal Street spread widely online.
“New Yorkers who were present should submit videos or photos, and we will review and investigate any violations of the law,” she wrote on X.
On Thursday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order establishing an “accountability commission.” The goal, according to a news release, will be to “shed more light on the misconduct of the Trump Administration’s federal agents and document a formal, public record that can be used to pursue justice and accountability.”
Pritzker, a Democrat, has warned National Guard troops that they could face prosecution for any misconduct. And he’s quoted in the release as saying: “Once this all ends, I believe there will be people of good faith who will review what the Commission has recorded and will demand answers and accountability.”
At the federal level, House Democrats are launching their own tool to document ICE misconduct. A spokesperson for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee confirmed to Gizmodo that they’re in the process of creating “a misconduct tracker to systematically document abuse and civil rights violations by this administration — including cases where ICE has detained U.S. citizens and violated federal law.”
In an apparent effort to preempt allegations that this tracker will be used to literally track ICE agents, the spokesperson clarified that the tracker will document “unconstitutional actions after they occur — it is not a live location tool” and said that creating such an investigatory record “is routine and essential in any oversight inquiry.” Despite this, Attorney General Pam Bondi falsely claimed on X that the planned tracker shows Democrats are “trying to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs.”
It’s worth noting: Polling data over recent months has shown that a majority of Americans don’t hold a favorable view of ICE and say that Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown has gone too far.
So, Democrats’ accountability efforts appear to coincide with broad public opposition toward what these federal agents have been doing at the will of the Trump administration.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
