Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) unloaded on federal immigration officials during a House Homeland Security hearing Tuesday, calling ICE agents "thugs," demanding the agency be abolished, and warning CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott that he'd "better hope" President Trump pardons him before leaving office.
Scott didn't flinch.
"I'm not going to speak on behalf of President Trump, but I'll tell you, I signed up for this job to protect America, and I'm very proud of the service that I provide, and I don't need a pardon from anybody."
According to Fox News, the exchange, which occurred during a hearing titled "Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security: ICE, CBP, and USCIS," captured something broader than one congressman's temper. It revealed exactly how far the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has drifted — not just from immigration enforcement, but from any pretense of respecting the people who carry it out.
Thanedar didn't build to a crescendo. He opened at full volume and stayed there. Addressing both Scott and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, the Michigan Democrat delivered a monologue that read less like congressional oversight and more like a protest rally:
"I have heard and seen enough. I'm just sick and tired of your agents running around in our cities, in our streets, causing illegal activities, ICE thugs attacking our communities, using our children as bait, referring to people as bodies and numbers, targeting people for their accents and the color of their skin, and killing American citizens, all while showing zero remorse for their actions."
There's a lot to unpack there — and almost none of it holds up to scrutiny. Federal officers enforcing federal immigration law are "causing illegal activities." Agents conducting lawful operations are "thugs." An entire agency is guilty of racial targeting. No evidence offered. No specific incident cited with any detail. Just a wall of accusations delivered with the cadence of someone who'd rehearsed it in front of a mirror.
Thanedar then pivoted to the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minnesota, though his remarks offered no specifics about the incident — no dates, no circumstances, no outcomes. The details didn't seem to matter. The shooting served as a rhetorical prop, not a fact to be examined.
The most revealing moment came when Thanedar tried to corner Scott and Lyons with a question designed to generate a clip, not an answer:
"Director Lyons and Commissioner Scott, do you think President Trump will pardon you and your boss, Kristi Noem, before he leaves office, just like he has for insurrectionists and his political allies? Do you believe President Trump will pardon you?"
When Scott's response denied the premise entirely, Thanedar simply repeated his threat:
"Well, you'd better hope so. You better hope you get pardoned. Because you will be held accountable for the absolute disregard of the law your agencies have shown over the past year."
Think about what's happening here. A sitting congressman is telling a Senate-confirmed commissioner — a career law enforcement official — that he will need a presidential pardon for enforcing immigration law. Not for breaking the law. For enforcing it. The accusation of lawlessness is aimed at the people upholding the law by a man who wants to abolish the agency responsible for doing so.
That's not oversight. That's intimidation dressed in a suit.
Thanedar wasn't content with rhetorical grenades. He announced concrete legislative efforts — or at least efforts that aspire to be concrete:
"And that's why I introduced a bill in the United States Congress to abolish ICE. ICE must be abolished."
He also confirmed he has co-sponsored a bill to impeach DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, calling both DHS and ICE "rogue departments" in need of congressional action.
Abolish ICE was a fringe slogan in 2018. By 2026, it's the official legislative strategy for the progressive wing. The bill won't pass. Everyone in that hearing room knows it. But the purpose was never to legislate. It was to signal — to the activist base, to the illegal immigrants Democrats have rebranded as a protected class, and to the federal officers themselves: we are coming for your agency.
Thanedar also claimed that "millions taking to the streets" had demonstrated against federal immigration enforcement, a figure offered without a single data point to support it. Millions. Not thousands. Not large crowds. Millions. Congressional testimony apparently has no fact-check threshold.
Here is where Thanedar's position collapses under its own weight. He accuses federal officers of "absolute disregard of the law." He demands accountability. He invokes the Constitution. And then, in the same breath, he calls for abolishing the very agency Congress created to enforce immigration law.
You cannot simultaneously demand law enforcement accountability and demand that law enforcement cease to exist. You cannot accuse officers of lawlessness while your legislative agenda is to eliminate the legal framework they operate under. The "rule of law" rhetoric is decoration. The actual position is simple: immigration enforcement should not happen.
Thanedar himself immigrated to the United States from India in the 1980s — legally, through the system that existed at the time. There's a deep irony in a legal immigrant wielding his congressional seat to dismantle the distinction between legal and illegal entry. The system that welcomed him is the same system he now calls rogue.
Both Scott and Lyons repeatedly backed their officers throughout the hearing. Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) eventually cut in — "The gentleman's time is expired" — and called the hearing into recess. The adults restored order.
But the damage, if you can call it that, was already done — though not the kind Thanedar intended. What the hearing revealed wasn't an agency in crisis. It was a faction of Congress that views immigration enforcement itself as the crime. Not a specific policy. Not a particular tactic. The entire enterprise.
When a congressman calls officers "thugs" on the record, introduces legislation to abolish their agency, and threatens their leadership with prosecution — all while offering no evidence beyond his own outrage — he hasn't conducted oversight. He's declared which side he's on.
It isn't the side of the law.