1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

I am writing in outrage at Congress’s continued silence following the killing of a woman in Minnesota by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and at the Trump administration’s subsequent effort to shift blame onto the victim rather than confront federal misconduct.   Representative Wesley Hunt’s statement on Newsmax — “When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life” — is a chilling assertion of absolute power. That is not the law. No federal agency has the authority to issue summary death sentences, and no American is required to forfeit their life to preserve an officer’s convenience or authority.   Instead of accountability, the administration has engaged in open gaslighting: portraying the deceased woman as the problem, implicitly suggesting that noncompliance justifies lethal force. This is not public safety. It is terrorizing the public.   Public reporting and recent polling indicate that Americans are increasingly alarmed by ICE’s conduct and by the erosion of basic civil liberties. The public sees what is happening. Congress, conspicuously, does not appear to.   So I ask plainly: - Where are the hearings? - Where are the subpoenas? - Where are the public demands for documents, body-camera footage, command-level authorization, and use-of-force justification? - Where are the threats to withhold or condition funding pending a full investigation?   ICE is a federal agency operating with taxpayer money and congressional authorization. If Congress will not exercise oversight when a civilian is killed and the official response is to blame the victim, then oversight has effectively ceased to exist.   Silence in this moment is not neutrality. It is consent.   I am demanding immediate, visible action: formal investigations, public hearings, and funding consequences if ICE leadership cannot demonstrate lawful, restrained, and accountable conduct. Anything less is a dereliction of congressional duty.   History will not be kind to lawmakers who looked away while federal power was used this recklessly — and then justified after the fact.