Sen. Kelly still seeks reform to ICE use of warrants as negotiations continue in Congress

This story was originally published by AZPM.

U.S. Senator Mark Kelly is sticking to his demands as Congress continues to negotiate about immigration enforcement reform.

The Arizona Democrat said he wants ICE to stop agents from wearing masks, require higher standards for search warrants and create new use-of-force guidelines. He also called for replacing the agency’s senior leadership, including Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

“This agency is out of control,” Kelly told AZPM News in a Friday interview.

After federal immigration agents killed protestors Alex Pretti and Renée Good during operations in Minneapolis, the annual appropriations process for the Department of Homeland Security became a political battleground as Democrats used it to push for ICE reforms.

“The mission (of ICE) is not to go out into the streets and roam around and harass people,” Kelly said.

Congress has until Feb. 13 to strike a deal, thanks to a two-week measure meant to fund the department while negotiations continue. Failure to extend DHS funding could cause a partial government shutdown.

Kelly said Republicans have not answered Democratic demands laid out in a Wednesday letter to his satisfaction.

Responding to a question by AZPM News, Kelly did not back down from a demand that has met some of the stiffest resistance from Republicans: requiring ICE agents to seek higher-level warrants before stopping people suspected of immigration violations.

“They should go to a judge for a warrant if they’re going to enter a building, somebody’s home or business,” he said.

An internal ICE memo first reported by the Associated Press last month suggested agents could enter private property with only an administrative warrant, a policy considered by many legal aid groups and local governments to be a Fourth Amendment violation.

Administrative warrants are signed by specialized immigration judges within the executive branch, not those in the judicial branch. They have not typically been used to enter people’s homes. Rather, they have allowed agents to stop suspected undocumented immigrants in public places. Kelly said that, under the Trump administration, he’s become skeptical of that process, too.

“I just don’t see how these administrative warrants (are) providing the oversight and the accountability that this agency needs right now,” he said.

Sen. Katie Britt, a Republican reported to be a frequent go-between during inter-party negotiations, called Democrats’ letter a “ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press.” Still, the White House has withdrawn agents from Minneapolis and President Donald Trump has suggested a “softer touch” on immigration in the future.

Despite the administration appearing to shift course, Sen. Ruben Gallego, Kelly’s Democratic colleague from Arizona, said on Wednesday that an ICE reform deal would be “very difficult” to achieve. ICE has over $70 billion in extra funding, far above regular funding levels, thanks to Republican-backed legislation passed last summer, allowing it to operate during a potential DHS shutdown.

Gallego said he’d support a bill funding non-immigration functions within DHS, like airport security and disaster relief, while withholding further funds from ICE. When asked by AZPM News, Kelly did not explicitly say he’d support such a bill.

Acts of violence by federal law enforcement affect local policing nationwide

Kelly said local law enforcement officials he’s spoken to are “embarrassed” about the killings of protestors Alex Pretti and Renée Good by federal agents during immigration enforcement operations.

“They realize this is going to set them back years in their ability to effectively do their job and interact with their communities,” he said.

Since the killings, the police departments of Tucson and Phoenix have made statements clarifying the relationship between local and federal agencies.

Meanwhile, the Tucson Police Department acknowledged that immigration raids “cause concern and uncertainty” and wrote that TPD officers identify themselves and are barred from wearing masks in a statement released last month.

In an interview, John Leavitt, a retired commander of the Tucson Police Department’s narcotics division, sharply criticized federal immigration agents’ use of face masks.

“The idea that wearing masks is in any way appropriate for normal law enforcement activity is incredible to me,” he said.

He said some of the tactics used during immigration raids — wearing non-standard uniforms, entering private homes and operating at night — closely resemble those used by criminal “rip crews” that rob drug dealers in southern Arizona and could cause confusion about who they are.

“Non-uniformed appearance is unprofessional and unsafe,” Leavitt said.

Early in his TPD career, Leavitt was doing traffic stops shortly after the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. Despite the incident occurring in another state, people he pulled over in Tucson would regularly ask if they would be beaten, he said.

“It was one of those real wedges between local policing and the community that was really, really hurtful,” Leavitt said. “It took years for us to recover from that.”

Constituents have increasingly been calling Tucson Ward 6 council member Miranda Schubert’s office asking if TPD can more actively protect locals from ICE, Schubert wrote in a newsletter on Friday. Last month, the Tucson City Council decided to create a policy barring federal agents from using city property as staging grounds for immigration raids. The city has also created a “Know Your Rights” page for interactions with immigration agents.