1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Urgent: Oppose the President’s Move to Let ICE Investigate Itself Federal agents around the country were told this week that the FBI will no longer investigate physical confrontations involving ICE and DHS agents. Instead, Homeland Security Investigations — a unit that operates under ICE itself — will be left to investigate its own agents’ conduct. This comes just weeks after ICE agents fatally shot people in Texas and Maine, and follows an earlier case in Minneapolis in which FBI agents were reportedly ordered to stand down from a civil rights investigation into the shooting death of Renee Good. I am asking you to take immediate, public action in response: Publicly demand answers from the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security about this reported change, in writing. Use your oversight authority to formally investigate the decision and the process behind it. Support legislative or appropriations measures that would require independent investigation of federal agent misconduct. Speak out clearly and immediately, because silence in moments like this has consequences. This is not a minor administrative shuffle. No one should investigate themselves. Independent oversight is a foundational safeguard against abuse of power, and handing that authority to the very agency under scrutiny guts its entire purpose. Homeland Security Investigations does not have jurisdiction over civil rights violations, which means incidents involving serious harm — including fatal shootings — may never receive the scrutiny needed to pursue charges under 18 U.S.C. § 242, the federal law against deprivation of rights under color of law. That leaves victims, including immigrants who are often the most vulnerable and least equipped to seek justice, with no real path to accountability. This also creates a two-tiered system of justice. Ordinary Americans are investigated independently when they harm someone; carving out a self-investigation exception for federal agents undermines the basic promise of equal treatment under the law, and it erodes public trust in federal law enforcement at a moment when that trust is already fragile. This may not be the letter of the law being broken, but it is a betrayal of its spirit. The rule of law depends not just on statutes, but on the good-faith expectation that power will not be used to insulate itself from consequence. I am watching closely how you respond. I will be sharing your response with my community, and it will factor into how I vote. Sincerely, A concerned constituent