Here & Now

US Rep. Gwen Moore on ICE and Funding For Homeland Security

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats could block funding for Homeland Security when it expires next Friday, unless there are, in their words, dramatic changes to how immigration operations are conducted. This comes in the aftermath of the deaths of two protesters in the midst of the enforcement surge in Minneapolis. In Wisconsin, all six Republican members of Congress voted this week for the stopgap two-week spending plan. Both Democratic House members in Wisconsin voted against, including U.S. Representative Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. She joins us now from Washington and thanks very much for being here.

Gwen Moore:
Oh, thanks for having me, Frederica. Always good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
So why did you vote no on the stopgap spending for Homeland Security?

Gwen Moore:
Well, Frederica, I was being very consistent. I had voted against the bill when it passed the House and went on to the Senate. The Senate then, Senate Dems, managed to create a negotiation where they split the bills. Theoretically, five bills to pass as is, and the Homeland Security bill to have a two-week stopgap. When it came back to the House, I truly expected it to have an opportunity to vote on separately on the other five bills in Homeland Security. But I had exactly one vote, and I decided to stick with my initial vote because of the egregious way that these, you know, you know, rogue forces were operating. And of course, as you mentioned, they killed two people. And further, they’ve jailed children, American citizens, destroyed property and just terrorized our communities. And I just couldn’t in good conscience, knowing that I had an opportunity to vote and stick a pin in this to not do so.

Frederica Freyberg:
What specifically are you and others seeking around these accountability measures for agents that are part of these enforcement activities?

Gwen Moore:
Well, thanks for asking Frederica. Really common-sense things. Anything that any American would expect, how they would want to be treated as a citizen or not. First of all, targeted enforcement. Have probable cause to stop someone, not stop someone because they are speaking Spanish or because they look like a Somali, or they look brown, or God forbid that they be a protester that’s exerting their First Amendment rights, and they get arrested for that. Have a probable cause. We want them to have no masks. I mean, this is horrifying. You know, Frederica, would any of us tolerate masked people not in uniform, but just dark clothes and hoodies to come up and kidnap us. Require some identification. What’s wrong with a badge and a badge number? We want state and local oversight and coordination in these arrests. Police in Wisconsin have the right to prosecute ICE officers if they are using unreasonable force. We want body cameras being used to record what’s happening, not to track people, but to record what’s happening. And certainly no paramilitary police. We want people trained as in regular law enforcement duties and standards, and we want them to have a judicial warrant in order to be able to arrest them, not an administrative warrant, not something that, you know, Pam Bondi has drawn up, but a warrant, a warrant signed by a judge.

Frederica Freyberg:
In terms of judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants, I’ve heard some Republicans say that the requirement of having judges sign off would cause gridlock in the system and dramatically slow this process. What about that?

Gwen Moore:
We wouldn’t have a snag in the system if, in fact, they were going after the people they said they were going after. God bless every ICE agent that finds a rapists and murderers and folks like that who have breached our borders. But to just round people up and to have a quota so that if they see you and I together, they decide to round us up so they can get their quota that day. None of that. They are creating the gridlock with these aggressive paramilitary activities.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are your expectations for quick agreement around these measures that you call for?

Gwen Moore:
These are not extraordinary things. I mean, these are common sense things. I mean, some of the worst criminals in the history of this country have not been confronted by agents with masks on and hoodies. They have been arrested, given their — told what their rights are and they’re being reassured that they’re being arrested by people who have the authority to do it. And they’ve been arrested because there was probable cause that they, in fact, were the people that they were seeking, not just some — they were not five-year-old kids being scooped up in order to manipulate their parents into presenting themselves to be arrested. This is common. This is — how hard could it be to come to some agreement around common sense, a common-sense agenda? Just regular order. How about regular policing? That’s what we’re asking for.

Frederica Freyberg:
I wanted to get your take on the president calling to federalize elections. Do you think Wisconsin, and especially Milwaukee could be a target of that?

Gwen Moore:
Well, just let me say the Constitution, which the president seems to readily and often and frequently ignore, says that states shall run the elections. So this is yet another unconstitutional thing that President Trump and his sycophants want to do. I am so happy that Fulton County, Georgia, is suing the president over the seizure, the FBI seizure, of their records. And I’m sad to think that the Justice Department, that they are appealing to a bunch of, you know, Trump cronies. But at some point, I hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the 10th Amendment, the Supremacy Clause, which Republicans have often relied upon for their segregational purposes. But the 10th Amendment clearly talks about a couple of things, like our right, for example, to have authority, arresting powers and authorities in our jurisdictions, as well as securing our voting operations.

Frederica Freyberg:
On another note, you’ve also been calling for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to act on congressional redistricting. But resolution isn’t at all likely ahead of the midterms, is it?

Gwen Moore:
Oh, absolutely. I would — I am calling on the jurists to look at this before our midterm elections with all haste, as we see the president trying to steal the 2026 election. You know, here we are in a state that’s 50/50, Democrat/Republican. Everybody knows that this is — this is the purplest of the purple states. That’s why we saw all the candidates congregating here during the election because this was high on — this is a prize to either side. And yet, in Congress you got poor me and Pocan holding it down for the Democrats. And there is a 6 to 2 majority for Republicans. And you know what? In a 50/50 state, 6 to 2, the math just ain’t math, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, we leave it there. Thanks very much.

Gwen Moore:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll hear from a Republican congressional member on these matters next week on this program.