Rashida Tlaib: ‘We Didn’t Have ICE Years Ago Before 9/11 … We Were Fine’

Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib unpacked her anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stance and said the U.S. was “fine” without ICE pre-9/11 during a podcast released Tuesday.

“It needs to be completely dismantled. We didn’t have ICE years ago before 9/11, and I can tell you we were fine,” Tlaib said on an episode of “Authentically Detroit.”

ICE was created in 2003 after the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was dissolved and its duties transferred to three entities, including ICE, under the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“We had Border Patrol. We had all those. I want people to appreciate between that, unpackage that. This is a new agency that came about afterwards. It’s important to know that. This is not the border patrol in the field. … This is a different agency that is very, in some cases, rogue,” said Tlaib, who is the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress.

DHS was created in response to the deadly 9/11 attacks, but Tlaib seemed to forget that at least three of the hijackers were in the country illegally, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

During her podcast appearance, Tlaib also told about ICE raids in front of schools she said she witnessed in 2010 while serving as a state legislator.

“I ran on abolishing ICE … I remember they did some sort of ICE operation right in front of a school, and then they did it again. I remember pushing back. … It was during the Obama administration,” Tlaib said.

Tlaib is a member of the so-called “squad” of four progressive congresswomen who faced insults from President Donald Trump starting with a July 14 Twitter rant asking “why don’t they go back.”

Tlaib’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.