Ranking Members Summer Lee and Robert Garcia Demand Accountability for DHS’s Violent and Unlawful Immigration Enforcement

PITTSBURGH, PA – APRIL 20, 2026 — Today, Congresswoman Summer L. Lee (PA-12), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement, joined Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent letters to four Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight entities demanding accountability for the agency’s violent and unlawful immigration enforcement tactics. The letters were sent to the DHS Office of Inspector General, the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Professional Responsibility, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Professional Responsibility. These internal watchdogs are supposed to ensure that DHS obeys the law, and to hold wrongdoing accountable.

“For too long, DHS agents have brutalized immigrants and even U.S. citizens with the expectation that no one will stop them and no one will make them answer for the harm they cause. That impunity was built by design and it was fed by officials who have excused the violence, hidden the truth, and treated human beings like they are disposable. These letters make clear that we are done accepting cruelty as policy and lawlessness as business as usual. Every person terrorized, beaten, disappeared, or stripped of their rights deserves accountability, and every official who helped create this culture of abuse must be investigated. The era of unchecked abuse must end here,” said Ranking Member Summer Lee.

“Oversight Democrats have documented hundreds of incidents of abuse and misconduct by DHS immigration enforcement agents, and every single one of them deserves a full investigation. We are demanding answers from every oversight body within DHS, and we will not stop until there is real accountability for every incident we have documented. All those who hurt innocent people, including American citizens, will be held accountable, and so will those who enabled these crimes. We are just getting started,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

In the letters to the oversight entities, Ranking Members Lee and Garcia wrote, “This conduct has not occurred in a vacuum. Since January 20, 2025, ICE, CBP, and other DHS officers and agents have taken these egregious actions in pursuit of the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign and at the encouragement of White House and DHS leadership. White House and DHS officials have stated that DHS personnel have “absolute immunity;” lied about this misconduct to the public, Congress, and the courts; reflexively defended personnel who have engaged in misconduct while smearing their victims; and allowed officers and agents to operate with masks and without identifying information. This culture of impunity must end.”

Rep. Lee has consistently led oversight efforts to expose and challenge abusive immigration enforcement practices at DHS. As Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement, Lee has pressed DHS over ICE’s reported use of foreign spyware against people in the United States, demanded answers about masked agents and unmarked vehicles used in immigration raids, and launched a congressional inquiry into the detention of a Brentwood asylum seeker with a valid work permit and no criminal record. She has repeatedly used her platform on the Oversight Committee to demand transparency, defend civil liberties and due process, and hold DHS and ICE accountable for policies and practices that terrorize immigrant communities and violate fundamental rights.

Congresswoman Summer Lee serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Education and Workforce. Since taking office in January 2023, she has delivered historic levels of federal investment totaling over $2.7 Billion brought back to Western PA, including over $580 million for infrastructure, over $110 million for affordable transit, over $500 million to keep clean energy manufacturing at home in Pennsylvania, and over $55 million on clean energy efforts in and around schools to help keep our kids and communities safe. These investments will help improve Western Pennsylvania’s infrastructure and transit, ensure cleaner air and drinking water, lower housing costs, fund research institutions, fuel clean manufacturing, fund STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, boost workforce development, and create thousands of good paying union jobs.  Lee and her team have also delivered casework and constituent services to over 4,000 constituents with issues ranging from helping our seniors and disabled community access Medicare and social security to helping folks secure housing and helping families with immigration support and passports.