Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida accused agents of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of “human trafficking” during a Thursday appearance on CBS, drawing a blistering response from Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin.
Rioting spread to multiple cities after initially flaring in Los Angeles following an ICE operation, with some Democrats demanding that the agency cease its operations as a way to “restore order.” McLaughlin tore into Frost’s comments after Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” questioned the left-wing congressman about his description of deportation as “a taxpayer-funded kidnapping operation.”
“Donald Trump ran on this mass deportation thing, but the thing that everyone needs to realize is deportation is a process. It is a legal process. Oftentimes it can take weeks, if not months, up to a year depending on the case,” Frost claimed. “And what is going on right now is actually not mass deportation even, because people aren’t being given due process. There is no legal process for people.”
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“We have ICE federal agents pulling up, terrorizing our communities, hopping out of unmarked vans, stealing and yes, kidnapping people, not giving them their day in court and yes, human trafficking them to other nations, other countries around the entire world,” Frost continued.
McLaughlin tore into Frost in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Yet another fame starved politician trying to get his 15 minutes of fame off the backs and safety of our law enforcement,” McLaughlin said. “These types [of] smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement. This kind of garbage has led to a more than 500 percent increase in the assaults on ICE officers.”
Frost was one of several congressional Democrats to travel to El Salvador in April when Democrats demanded Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an adjudicated member of the El Salvadoran prison gang MS-13, be returned to the United States, claiming he had not received due process and had been mistakenly deported. The Trump administration released a 13-page dossier detailing the evidence against Abrego Garcia in April.
Abrego Garcia was detained in Tennessee on suspicion of human trafficking during a traffic stop, but was released at the behest of the Biden administration FBI in 2022, according to the Tennessee Star. Abrego Garcia returned to the United States on June 6 to face charges in a federal court in Nashville related to the 2022 incident.
Assaults on ICE agents have increased by 500% while trying to arrest illegal immigrants, Breitbart News reported.
Frost did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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