Jayapal: Protesters Have Been Peaceful — It’s ICE, CBP ‘Inflaming Tensions’

Video at link.

by Pam Key 19 Jan 2026
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Monday on CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection agents were “inflaming tensions” in Minneapolis, not protesters.

Host Audie Cornish said, “So first, I want to start with this protest in a church. We were talking here on the panel about whether that is going too far, disrupting a service. What do you think?

Jayapal said, “Well, I haven’t reviewed the entire video for that, but I would just say that the vast majority of protesters, like 99.9%, have been engaging in peaceful protest. And, a court decision on Friday reaffirmed that. And, actually said that it’s the tactics of ICE agents and CBP agents that are the problem here, that are violating constitutional protections. You do have the right to peacefully say that you disagree, to follow ICE agents and record what they are doing at a safe distance. And, the reality is it’s been ICE and CBP that’s been really inflaming tensions and making people less safe rather than more safe.”

She added, “The agency itself of ICE, which never existed prior to 2001, as you remember, the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of 911 and a whole number of different departments and agencies were put together under DHS. That’s when ICE was created. So my bill back then, and I never used the language abolish ICE, was really about restructuring DHS, moving the enforcement activities of ICE to another place, and making sure that we had very good guardrails and accountability in place.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026...ming-tensions/