Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons delivered a pointed message to Democrats on Sunday, pushing back as officials like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., insisted 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was “assassinated” by an officer in Minneapolis.
“Look at the video, look at this situation. It wasn’t an assassination. That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not a short time, to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” Lyons told “The Sunday Briefing.”
“I think a lot of the political rhetoric is where we’re at right now in the first place. There’s just so many attacks on ICE and, unfortunately, it does come from a lot of elected officials,” he added.
Lyons blasted lawmakers determined to impede ICE’s operations rather than “work with” the agency to hold individuals accountable for doxxing agents or exposing them to harm.
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“For elected officials to call upon the impediment of ICE, to resist ICE, that only stokes these fires and gets these individuals who aren’t trying to do the right thing when it comes to ICE… [it] gets them fired up more,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic lawmakers have condemned the shooting that claimed Good’s life last week after she reportedly accelerated her vehicle in a federal agent’s direction.
The “Squad” Democrat fired back at Vice President JD Vance with remarks on Capitol Hill last Friday, slamming his defense of ICE.
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“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not, and that is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I,” she said.
“I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
Lyons added that there would be little need for ICE to be in the streets if local jurisdictions worked with the agency to hand over criminal illegal aliens.
“Just turn them over to us in a safe, secure environment, and you wouldn’t have to have us going out and arresting these folks.”
