Gregg Jarrett Explains Why Forcing ICE Agents To Get Judicial Warrants Would Effectively End Deportations

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Friday that Democrats’ proposal to restrict Immigration and Customs Enforcement would grind deportations to a halt.

Democrats have demanded weeks of negotiations on immigration enforcement. Their 10-point list of proposed reforms includes tightening warrant requirements, banning agents from wearing masks and requiring ICE officers to publicly display their last names. Speaking on “The Evening Edit, “Jarrett said the push to require judicial warrants amounts to a deliberate effort to dismantle immigration enforcement from within.

“And now Democrats want to handcuff ICE under the threat of defunding Homeland Security, forcing agents to obtain judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants, which is the current law, [and it] would effectively end deportations because liberal federal judges would summarily refuse to issue them regardless of the facts. And that is exactly, Liz, what Democrats want,” Jarrett told host Elizabeth MacDonald.

MacDonald pointed to a growing list of proposed restrictions on ICE, noting that the agency already received roughly $75 billion over four years under what Republicans tout as a major border security package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune rejected the additional conditions that Democrats want to attach.

“Look, amid the constant verbal attacks by Democrats against ICE, all the ugly rhetoric. That’s only incentivized the now 1,300% increase in assaults against ICE agents. It’s harassment, intimidation, and incitement under the phony guise of free speech,” Jarrett added.

Jarrett said Democrats are pushing to revive former President Joe Biden’s open borders approach.

“They want a repetition of Biden’s open-borders policy, where alien criminals and illegal migrants get special exemptions to defy the law and stay here. [Democratic] Senator [Mark] Warner [of Virginia] said, ‘Yeah, it was a crummy Biden policy,’ but they loved that policy,” Jarrett added. “And by the way, I didn’t hear Democrats complain or see protesters out on the street obstructing ICE when Obama deported up to four million people during his eight years in office. Trump tries to do it, and all hell breaks loose.”

The Congress approved a package combining five spending measures with a brief extension keeping the Department of Homeland Security funded at existing levels, a plan President Donald Trump enacted Tuesday. Democrats urged a short extension to buy time for talks with the administration over immigration enforcement. Most House Democrats and about half their Senate counterparts ultimately voted against the temporary fix.

Republican leaders have already dismissed multiple Democratic demands aimed at reshaping immigration enforcement, including proposals to bar officers from concealing their identities while on duty. Democrats have likewise turned aside a separate temporary funding plan that would have kept DHS operating beyond the Feb. 13 deadline, leaving the department’s budget in limbo as the deadline approaches.

Several Democrats have expressed skepticism that Congress can strike a deal before the DHS funding deadline hits. Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday that negotiations stalled because Democrats are unwilling to support additional funding for ICE.

“I strongly reject this ‘Abolish ICE’ and some of the extremism about that,” Fetterman said. “We’ve [Democrats] been there before. They scream about it, and then they have to back away and disavow those views.”